I first met Ben at University, where he was sharing a house with Guy, Jason, Chris, Neil and Paul. The house was full of bikes, and I would spend more time there than in my own house over the next year or two. Either waiting to go mountain biking, watching videos about mountain biking, talking about bikes, fixing bikes or riding them on the dodgy jumps we’d built in the back garden over an old shopping trolley.

Ben didn’t have a bike of his own at first, but living in that house, it was only matter of time. He mentioned that he had ridden a bit of BMX as a kid, but being as we had all grown up in the 80s - that didn’t necessarily seem anything special. Eventually he was persuaded to part with some of his hard-saved cash for a generously discounted bike in the shop I was working in at the time - MacLaines Cycles in Wolverhampton. It was a bright green ‘Orange Clockwork’ steel-framed cross-country bike which became known as ‘the gate’ due to its size and similarity to something you wold see separating sheep in a farmer’s field.

Within a short space of time, on our first few rides with Ben on his new bike, it was clear that he had probably been a bit more serious about BMX in his youth than he had let on. In fact, it turns out he had raced at a pretty high level - as his skills on this enormous, skinny-tubed touring bike showed. While making all of us look distinctly more average than we thought we were, we would watch open mouthed and try to work out how to grow a pair and emulate what came so easily to him. Over jumps and berms, he would show us exactly how it should be done, with a seemingly innate ability to make the impossible mundane. We would bask in his reflected glory whenever we would turn up at a new jump spot and encounter a group of local shredders. He rode that bike like a BMX, and like none of us could - I don’t know how it survived!

After University I heard he had got hold of a Pashley 24” BMX bike and got back into the ‘little bikes’. I enjoyed following his progress and success and would regularly tell people about my friend Ben.

When I got the chance to ride with him again in 2004 at the Chicksands dual race, it was an opportunity for me to test my skills and see if I could give the big guy a run for his money in practice, Needless to say, he gave me a little hope and let me lose by only a few metres (I might have jumped the start a little too)… Later in the day, riding a borrowed bike through the rounds into the final - he lost narrowly due to slipping a gear on an unfamiliar bike he had borrowed from Mike at Dialled bikes. He would of course go on to more success riding others of Mike’s frames but better designed and built for his requirements.

The last time we got to ride together, with Guy, Jason and others on a trip to the trails around Betws-y-Coed in Wales, it was the first time some of my friends in the group had met Ben, and despite my tales of his prowess I think they found it hard to reconcile that impression with the guy who had turned up on the same bike he had since university, with rim brakes, mismatched cranks, and now sporting reflectors on his front wheel (having borrowed it from Nicola’s bike).

Despite recovering from brain surgery, and riding a 10 year old shonky hardtail, he proceeded that weekend to deliver an object lesson on why you never judge the quality of a rider by their bike, and left those he met that weekend with a lasting impression, as he did so many people.

I hoped that one day I could take the stickers with Ben’s name off my helmet and ride with him once again. But I will keep them with pride, and I know that every time I remember Ben and try to ride with some of his style and skill - I’ll be guaranteed to finish that trail with a big smile on my face… and he’d be right there with me - whooping and high fiving.