Hello Sam!
Who am I and why ALLEGRA?
Bikes, and sharing the fun of bikes, has been my whole life. I must have learnt to ride as a small kid in England – I can’t remember ever not riding. When I was 12 years old, I decided that my brother and I were big enough to set off on a 3-day bike-packing trip on our own. No phones, no adults, no worries!
I started guiding and instructing professionally in Colorado when I was 20, back in 1998. I still love guiding, when I can, to this day. I have lived and worked in the French Alps for 25 years, officially becoming a French citizen a few years ago.
I am passionate about raising the standards of the instructor-guide profession. I believe we hold the key, along with great trail planning, to increasing diversity and participation in all forms of biking. I have worked as a trainer for Instructor-guides for many years and was the founding president of the European MTB guides Association. With some European funding (and a lot of hard work) we created a training system for instructor-guides which is now delivered in over half of the countries in Europe and is still growing all the time. If you’ve ever had a bike lesson, hopefully some of the principles I believe in so much have helped you to progress!
The other key to inclusion and diversity in biking is great trail and destination planning, and this is why working with Allegra is such a dream for me. Truly world leaders in the holistic conception and construction of biking destinations, Allegra embodies my definition of the sustainable future of biking, bringing together the social, environmental, and economic understanding to deliver more perfect moments on bikes.
I keep my love for riding bikes alive by… riding more bikes! I like to enter crazy races from time to time. Over the years I have raced most disciplines of biking, from enduro and DH to marathon XC. Recently I tried a gravel bike-packing event and was worried to learn that I really, really enjoyed it! The video clip above is at the end of a 700km race during which I climbed 11000m+ over 52 hours, only 1.5 of which were spent sleeping. I also did it on a singlespeed bike - if I look a little tired, now you know why!
My favorite product at ALLEGRA?
There is a blue grade trail in Sölden that changed my life. Seriously!
Why? Because it’s accessible to all rider levels. Because it’s in a bike park but it feels like the best of a natural trail. Because, from an instructor-guide’s perspective, it is very safe – if you are going fast on this trail it is because you have used advanced skills to create that speed. Because, from a trail builder’s perspective, it is built in a way that requires little maintenance and meant it was in great shape when I rode it one October day at the end of a long season.
Because there are SO many fun lines that you can ride a party train with pro racers, guides and relative beginner riders and, here’s the key, EVERYONE IS LOVING IT!
Inclusive, safe and awesome fun for a wide audience. All trails should aspire to this.
What do I most like to talk to you about?
Creating moments of perfection.
What we can do with a project depends on so many ‘top-down’ factors like budget, time resources, natural landscape, transport infrastructure and so on.
But what we need to do is always the same and it starts at the bottom, not the top - we need to create little moments of sheer perfection in the lives of the people riding our trails.
Easy, no?!
Psychologists, economists, geographers and many others have studied why and how to make this happen – us bikers need to read more scientific journals! I feel very lucky to have spent my whole adult life working at the sharp end of this process and I hope my obsession with curating these perfect moments for riders of all levels will help you to do the same in your trail area.
| Area | Destination development, project management and trail planning |
| Team | Allegra International |
| Specialty | Bringing the ALLEGRA magic to France. I’m also a carpenter, which sometimes helps! |
| Languages | French, English and «Bike» |
| base | Moûtiers, French Alps |
