Dirt jump bike, E-MTB or doing laps on the Enduro rig, Olly loves it all. We had a chat with the man with the best race face in the bizz about life, travels and french fries.

Not all heroes wear capes and not all pro riders are racers. One guy who has been entertaining the MTB crowd for years now is Surrey Hills based Olly Wilkins. He earned his ranks as a pro dirt jumper, but has always been seen on any iteration of bike out there. Weather its razzin’ on his E-MTB, travelling the globe for projects of throwing huge whips on the dirt jumps, Olly always seems to have a trademark grin and vibe to what he does. We managed to corner him and fire a few questions his way.

Hi Olly! How are things? What are you up to these days?

Hey Jarno, yeah I’m very well thanks. Thanks for doing the interview with me! 

My pleasure. I saw you’ve been to Mexico recently, tell us a bit about that trip. 

Yeah Mexico was amazing. It's actually one of the coolest things I have done, So that trip was not just a riding trip. We actually went there to help local communities and build an Urban DH track. That stuff is getting really popular these days, especially with Red Bull on board. The basic idea was to go there for 10 days, me and some of my best friends build a track and then we get to ride it. 

It's a pretty cool experience, as when we show up most people have no clue on what a mountain bike is and they’re a bit weary of you. Then during the week you’re in their streets doing some hard work, shovelling dog poo, cleaning the area and building stuff with wood. So they come to like you and interact a bit more, and when the build is finished we come and do these massive jumps and tricks that they couldn’t have dreamed were possible and you’ve become their friend. It’s a really cool experience, the people are so nice there. I love Mexico!

You’ve had the chance to visit  a lot of places riding bikes. Which one stands out for you and why?

Well, from a people point of view, the Mexico trip was amazing. Most of the riding was more in an urban setting though. I mean we did ride some trails there, but the scene is not huge so the trails are a bit more limited.

But when it comes down to the best places to ride from a trails point of view, I feel like I am a bit of a broken record haha. I’d have to say Madeira stands out for me. It’s really the amount of variation you can find there which makes it so unique. The builders there have done an outstanding job on creating these, so shout out to John Fernandez and his crew, they’ve done a killer job.

Yeah, Madeira does have some amazing riding indeed. Is there any place you haven’t visited yet and that’s high on your bucket list?

Japan! I went there on a hiking holiday and got blown away. When hiking in the high alpine mountains they were not just your classic copy paste Pine tree forests. I think you can actually find a lot of super loamy trails over there and I just love loam. So I really need to get myself back there again with a bike. 

Does Japan have a big riding scene?

Good question, I don’t know really. You’d expect so, they have a lot of National parks and stuff and there are loads of people living there. But that’s a bit of the allure to me, the now knowing part. That’s what brings the adventure you know. 

Rumour is you used to live in Belgium. Is that true and are the Flemish Fries better than the French? 

How the heck do you know that?! Haha, yeah I was born in England and lived in Belgium until I was three years old. As for the fries, I really don’t know about that one. Need to do a comparative test next time I’m in the area. 

Staying in the past a bit. How did you start off riding bikes in the first place?

Well I guess it started out with family bike rides. Actually, my mum told me there was always something wrong with me from the beginning. I always had to be moving, on a bike or a scooter or something. But it wasn’t like a proper hobby until later in life when we started going on family bike rides. Basically I was into danger, speed, woods and mechanical stuff… so mountain biking is the ultimate fusion of all of that. 

Were you ever a lycra clad XC racer? 

Haha, no never. I’ve never really raced XC, but I do think most of the riding I do I would call Cross Country to be honest. Even when I was competing in dirt jumping, there was a huge amount of time I was just out riding my bike. In the end I think there are a lot of labels, but it’s all just riding bikes isn’t it? I think we have made it sound a lot more complicated than it actually is with all these labels. It’s just ups, downs, jumps and corners in the end. 

If you weren’t a bike rider, how would you spend your weekends? 

I have absolutely no idea haha. I am way too deep in bikes these days that I have no clue what else I would do. Maybe I’d be into basketball? My family is quite into that, and I played a lot when I was younger, so I guess that would be my best answer. But I don’t think I’d be very good at it, being only 6ft tall and barely able to walk or jump these days haha.

You were one of the first to embrace the E-bike hype. Do you ride them a lot?

True, when I started riding for Focus, they gave me one of their E-MTB’s and at that time none of my friends had one yet. So that first year I didn’t really get it because I was just miles ahead or riding on my own a lot and at that point I didn’t see when and why I would choose it over a standard bike.

Then when some of my good friends got one too, and then in the depth of winter we really started to get it. We would just charge 'em up and go for high speed laps, charge them up and go again. And the amount of miles we were able to put in and the fact that you could still push yourself physically really jumped out for us and we figured it was actually good training for downhill racing. 

Over time I really found a time and type of riding I enjoy doing on the electric bike and although it would never replace my regular riding, it is amazingly fun to do. And the good thing is, no matter what you say about them, they do bring more people to the sport which is always a good thing. 

I don’t want to sound like some cheesy salesman of some type of pyramid scheme, but I’d say just give them a go. Get out on one and make up your own mind if this is something you enjoy or not. 

Recently the market has been moving more towards the lighter E-bikes. What’s your thoughts on the new lightweight Emtb thing? 

Yeah, Focus actually is one of the brands which have many different E-bikes in the range, with different motor and battery sizes. So I have already been able to try out the Bosch, Fazua and Shimano. There are great things about all of them and I don’t think we can even begin to imagine where we will be in about 10 years from now.

When for example I take a ride on the Fazua system, if I compare it to the first ever E-bike I had, that’s already such a drastic change. The weight, the power output and handling is just a world of difference, and that progress just happened in a really short period of time. Really looking forward to seeing what’s next, we’re definitely on the steep part of the progression curve here. 

YouTube and social media has made quite an impact on the day to day of the MTB pro rider. Can you tell us a little about what YouTube does for you?

Ah good question. Well, I basically stopped competing when I was about 19, mainly because I just wasn’t motivated enough anymore. And since then I had to find ways of bringing worth to my sponsors, because I still wanted to continue riding every day of course.

So YouTube is just another one of those things that is just required of you. Not that I don’t enjoy it though, actually for me it is a really nice creative outlet. And if you have a creative / ADHD mind it is easy to come up with ideas. As I am a mountain biker I know that anything I come up with is authentic and interesting for the people that view my content. I just build trails, ride loamers, I ride all kinds of different disciplines, basically just do what I enjoy and bring some value to my sponsors that way.

It is tricky sometimes because it is absolutely non stop content. Now I don’t expect you to play any violin music or anything like that, haha. But it is something that takes up a lot of time. And I’m really lucky to kind of be able to spread this between YouTube, my podcast and social media and stuff. In the end I reach a much wider audience than I used to with just the printed magazines. It’s a weird feeling though, because sometimes you’re just out there on a trail all by yourself making a video and talking to yourself haha. 

You must have a lot of content and footage, do you have to be careful with what you bring out to play with the YouTube rules and please the algorithm? 

Yeah I’ve spent ages of trying to figure that bit out, but in the end you realise you just can’t predict what will happen. Sometimes a video gets flagged or de-monetised so you don’t make any ad revenue from it, and you can’t really figure out why. My take is just to make interesting content and I don’t worry too much about algorithms and ad revenue. Otherwise in the end you will end up making new iterations of the same video again and again because it got a lot of views and likes. I prefer to make interesting videos, or at least try! 

With the summer in full swing, what trips and events have you planned this year? 

Yes. I have a series of street races in Mexico and South America, and that's with my team of friends that we do the track builds with. Then there is a chance I will be digging at Rampage again for the 8th time, so that’s going to be really good. And of course there will be numerous smaller projects in between, but hopefully I get to be home sometime at home too.

On all those long trips, you must have a lot of time for music / podcasts. What’s on your spotify these days?

One I am definitely excited about is called ‘13 minutes to the moon’ by the BBC, it’s about how we landed on the moon and the other Apollo missions. How crazy is that? I’m there, a 37 year old man digging a 12 foot high jump in the woods by himself, listening to stories about how we went to the moon. 

If for some reason you had to flee the UK. Where would you move to and why? and what would you take with you?

I think I’d move to another island, Madeira. Besides the insane riding it has a really nice vibe to it as well. As for what I’d bring, obviously my bikes, my chickens and my cat. Oh and my girlfriend of course! I probably should have mentioned her first haha! 

Lastly, who would you like to thank? 

Well, you for getting me interviewed of course, but of course my sponsors: Focus bikes, Troy Lee Designs, Goodyear Bike, X Fusion Shocks, DMR, Stans NoTubes, Melon glasses, Motul and of course InvisiFrame. Oh and mum and dad of course!

 

By IMB

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