
Hurtling downhill at breakneck speeds, mountain bike champion Reece Wilson is used to taking his destiny into his own hands.
Now he’s taking it one step further by branching out and forming his own team as he aims to help revolutionise a sport that’s finally getting its moment in the sun.
The 28-year-old from the Borders has been obsessed with life on two wheels since first mounting a motorbike aged just six, as he followed in his motocross rider dad’s tracks.
‘My dad was my hero’
“My dad was my ultimate childhood hero,” he says. “When he put that helmet and armour on, he looked like a man going to war.
“These massive motorbikes going nearly 100mph… I’m stood as a kid just wide-eyed. It was written in the stars that adrenalin was going to be my passion.
“Down in Earlston, there’s not really much to do other than ride bikes, and I was always too small to play rugby. I hated the responsibility I had to give others in team sports.”
Realising the prospects of a motocross career in Scotland were slim, Reece pivoted to biking under his own steam.
“I was brainwashed that I was going to be a professional mountain biker, having never competed, and told my teachers I’d do this as a living,” he says.
“They told me to get realistic and think about something else, but I did the BASE mountain biking course at Borders College in Galashiels and, two years later, I was British champion and signed my first contract to race around the world.
“I remember meeting one of my teachers in Tesco and she couldn’t believe I’d done it!”
Setting up a new team
Reece, who became a world champion in 2020 and continues to regularly finish on the podium, is gambling on himself by not renewing his contract with Trek Factory Racing.
He’d spent so much time dreaming of being a part of that team that he had their name as his school computer password.
But now, setting up new team AON (from the Gaelic word aonacht, meaning unity) marks the next chapter of his career and reflects a desire to drive positive change.
“Teams are normally massive manufacturing companies with a lot of moving components,” he says. “Trek had over 8,000 employees – we have six.
“There can be too many cooks in the kitchen. It can slow progress down and in a sport growing as fast as mountain biking, there’s so much potential out there.
“We have a saying in the Borders, ‘aye-been’. Why change, it’s always been that way. I’ve never really seen myself fitting in that box, that’s a crazy mindset.
“Our goal is to strive towards the highest possible performance. We want to be a team every rider feels they need to be on to win.”
Mountain biking’s potential
There certainly seems to be plenty of untapped potential in mountain biking, and Reece’s move comes as Warner Bros Discovery take over the TV rights from Red Bull and invest in the sport.
“Many people watch, just flabbergasted at what we do and how little recognition the sport has,” Reece says.
“Our team this year could spend in excess of £1.6 million to get racers around the world in a 10-round series. It’s not small money. It’s a serious business.
“Bike brands are in it because there’s bikes to be sold. Venues like Abu Dhabi have been reaching out wanting to host races. Japan has offered to take the sport over there.
“Scotland has an incredible amount of talent and all over the world kids are showing skill you’d never have dreamed of. Popularity is skyrocketing.”
Getting technical
Reece has always taken a keen interest in the technical side of the sport, dating back to his motocross days of travelling with his dad. The bikes he rides now, he says, might look a little alien to regular cyclists.
“There’s almost no need for pedals at all and sometimes not even gears. When you start removing fundamental things that make a bicycle a bicycle, it starts getting interesting to me, but weird from the outside.
“The ultimate goal is to have a monster truck for going down mountain trails. If you’re up Ben Nevis and turn round to come back down, picture that scene, that’s our canvas. The steeper and faster the better.”
There’s far more to it, though, than the rider just placing their faith in gravity and fate.
Almost as thrilling as the downhill rides to Reece is the potential for technological advancements, from wheel sizes to suspension technology, and electrics to ABS.
“My whole career, nothing’s really changed,” he says. “That frustrates me because I watch Formula One and MotoGP constantly evolving, changing rules all the time to force teams to change products.
“We just don’t do that in our sport. I want to start thinking outside the box to see where the ceiling is. At the moment I don’t think we can actually see it. I’m happier than I’ve ever been with my career right now.”
Downhill thrills
As he looks forward to balancing running the team with competing, Reece admits that just talking about the thrill of the sport gives him goosebumps.
“When you’re having a bad day, it’s one of the hardest things in the world, coming at you so fast you have to react in hundredths and thousandths of a second.
“There really is truth in the saying that you never really feel alive until you’re staring danger in the face. That’s mountain biking.
“It feels like everything’s happening in slow motion. You watch it back and it’s complete carnage, limbs everywhere, but you feel perfectly in control, completely at peace.”
It’s obviously not all without danger, but Reece believes it’s a risk worth taking.
“I’m seven surgeries down,” he laughs. “I don’t really have a limb that hasn’t had a knife on it at some point but it’s the price you pay to play. And I really enjoy playing.”
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