ANDREW, BRITT AND THE TEAM   •   SCOTTS VALLEY CYCLE SPORT

How'd you get into cycling?

Britt When I met Andrew, he got me into cycling. We started out road riding and after a long year he finally let me on a mountain bike.

Andrew I started riding BMX in high school. Then dirt jumps, skate parks.. I didn't even like mountain bikes. I was like, "How do you jump this? How do you ride this in a skate park?" And then one day it clicked. I realized mountain biking is just a downhill skatepark.

I started riding mountain bikes in 2003 right after I graduated high school. I got a job at the bike shop in town – the one we're standing in but at a different location.

Britt This is the only job he's ever had, working at SVCS.

Andrew I only needed to have one job. It IS a job after a while.

Britt Have you heard the legends of Schwilly? He jumped off the Camarillo high school roof on his BMX bike.

Andrew I had hucker's neck at a young age.

It just kinda evolved, I got into racing – dual slalom. First race ever, I went straight to dual slalom at the Sea Otter Classic in 2005. I took myself out – I knocked myself out in the finals. My grandparents came up to watch from southern California. I made it to the finals and went to jump one of the doubles and came up short. Straight to my head. It was pretty sweet. And that's what started my downhill career.

I got a Santa Cruz Bullit the next year with a FOX 40, one of the very first ones. I think the stanchions were bigger than my legs. It was super fun racing DH with all my buddies, and traveling.

I did race XC couple years ago, again –and Sea Otter got the better of me.

What drives your passion for bikes?

Britt You can't be mad while you're riding a bike, it's really hard. No matter what bike I'm on, it's pretty fun. I like to try to encourage people to ride bikes and feel that freedom and happiness that I get.

Andrew Just having fun with my friends. I love that we can all go out and ride the same trail and we all take away a different experience from it, and the stories afterwards are so much fun to talk about. And to see people's natural stoke after they go out and ride a bike, I mean that's a cool thing. They come into the shop, you get them set up on their first bike or upgrading, and then talking to them after their first ride, it's pretty cool to see how fired up they are.

What are the best rides/trips/events you've done?

Britt Ashland is pretty amazing. It's so close, it only takes us 6 hours and 80 dollars in gas in our Sprinter. We have some of the best trails here in our back yard.

Andrew This past year we rode a trail called Camp Nelson in the Sequoia National Forest. It was just insane, I was just blown away. One of my best trips is only 4 hours away.

My most memorable trip was the one time I went to Europe to race a World Cup. And I thought I was awesome, and I was humbled. In 2009 I went to Schladming, Austria and raced the World Cup DH there, and it was insane. It was a moto track for downhill bikes. Kurtis Keen and the guys I was traveling with and our buddy Omatto said, "Buy your ticket, meet us in Munich." And that's what I did. It was an awesome weekend -- I found out you gotta go a lot faster than I thought. I came there to race, I just wasn't racing as nearly as fast. It was so cool to ride something out of my comfort zone and see what real World Cup tracks are like. I didn't qualify if it makes you feel any better.

Favorite bike build

Andrew My favorite bike I thought was my Stumpy Evo 26 inch, 2011. I thought that until all of the sudden other wheel sizes and bike platforms came along. Now my favorite bike build is anything with 150-160 mil travel with a 66-degree head angle that I can ride all day. A good trail bike is my ideal bike. Because I don't mind climbing, but I want to have a lot of fun going downhill. Shuttling is a lot of work these days, I gotta get my fitness in and my descending in.

Britt There is only one bike that I don't like riding -- riding a beach cruiser is terrible. It's the least efficient bike ever. I tried to ride one up to FOX the other day and was sweating profusely.

I thought I liked the Stumpy 29 and then I made some modifications to the 650B tire and got used to that. Then I started riding 6Fattie and I'm loving that. And then I hop on my XC bike and love its efficiency and light weight, so it just depends on where I'm going. I'm lucky that I have a demo fleet of bikes to choose from. I'm learning how to be picky.

Keys to successful shop

Andrew Enthusiasm. You gotta be excited about what you're selling and what you're doing. I come here every day with a good attitude because I know I'm doing something that I love. I get to ride my bike and talk to people about bikes. And a good staff. They always make things a lot easier for me. Because they allow me to go ride my bike.

Britt Being really involved in the community really helps. And having a good open line of communication with your distributors, like Specialized, Santa Cruz and FOX. We have good brands that back the local bike shop.

Community

Britt We coach a high school mountain bike team. We do women's rides. We're on planning committees for local events, we hosted a bike valet for a beer garden, we donate money to schools, raffles, churches --community, stuff like that, all around.

Andrew We also did an Enduro team last year which was really cool. Kind of an evolution of racing for the shop here has been a lot of enduro type stuff and road racing. I got a bunch of kids on the XC team, and one way to keep them motivated to train and race XC is to dangle the Enduro team at the end of the season.

Britt I like to dangle my Enduro around!

Andrew The most fun and rewarding thing is the middle school/high school mountain bike team. We started it probably five years ago. A couple kids came and asked if I wanted to help out with the team, and their parents came in with them, and I said, "Yeah of course I'd love to help sponsor it" And the kids looked at me and said, "No, no. we need you to COACH it!" And I was like, "Uh, ok!" That started the team with 11 kids the first year and now we're at about 50 kids. It's pretty cool to see it growing, and with the XC being more that endurance type sport, maybe not as much action as you'd see in Enduro or DH as far as jumping, it's great to see how many kids are excited about it and know there could be a future in it whether they're off to college racing or racing later on in their lives.

Britt We have two high school teams and we have our composite teams which has kids that go to about five different schools.