Old About Me

The Short:

Name: David Montgomery

Hometown: Banbridge, Co. Down, Northern Ireland

Age: 22

Category: Elite

Interests: Riding a bike real fast

Disciplines: Well, all of them really. I just like riding bikes

Hobbies: Casing jumps, eating lettuce, sleeping

Music: Makes me go faster

The Long:

Realising all the cool kids at school played sports, and the really cool ones played field hockey, I ended up as close to playing a sport as a chubby, arty kid could be: goalkeeper. Between hockey and school, I’d play around the house on my bike, hopping up and down kerbs and trying my best to wheelie. Many pinch-flats and sore bums later, I found that you could ride bikes in forests too: Mountain-Biking! Awesome. I started doing this as often as I could, on the weekends that I didn’t have hockey matches. As I started cycling more, I also seemed to get better at keeping hockey balls out of the net. To this day I never really think I was much use, lots of cycling just meant that the goalkeeper beat all of the out-field players in fitness tests, and I ended up on Ulster and Irish teams before I knew it. Unfortunately my real passion was with ragging my mighty GT Ruckus hardtail around the local forests. Riding on my own got a little boring, and I wanted to see how I stood up against other people my age.

After much begging and pleading, my parents eventually let me miss Church for the first time to race my bicycle. I rode the National Cyclocross Championships U16 race on my GT Ruckus that had become a mini-DH bike and got to the top of the podium. This, with a lot more begging and pleading got me selected for the Irish XC Development Squad in 2011. I had never ridden ‘XC’ as such, and wanted to race DH, but the DH Development Squad had already been chosen, so I went for the next best thing. In 2011 I got to race some XC and DH. Turned out I fell off too much to be as competitive as I wanted in DH races, but I realised there was enough time to fall off plenty in XC races and still podium; I was hooked!

Racing Highlights:

As an U16 in 2011 Winning my first National XC Championships. Finishing 2nd just behind the British NPS winner in my first ‘out of Ireland’ race, and getting to compete in the UK School Games multi-day event in Sheffield.

As a 1st Year Junior in 2012 Winning the National XC Championships (by 9mins) and the National CX Championships (by 11mins). Winning the Senior 2 & Junior categories in multiple XC NPS rounds. 3rd Senior and 1st Junior at the Ulster CX Championships.

2014 Targets:

Have yet to be decided upon as I'm still looking for funding and support to figure out what and where I'll be able to race in 2014.