Teenager bike-packed 4000km so he could race Enduro World Series

Carrying all of his necessities, a Christchurch teenager rode thousands of kilometres between countries on his downhill bike just so he could afford to compete in an international mountainbike series.

Despite a confronting encounter with a bear, some rough nights sleeping on the side of the road and a diet of lollies and chips, he plans to do it all again next year.

Matthew Fairbrother, 18, has just completed a crazy six-month adventure following the Enduro World Series through Europe and North America on a budget.

Fairbrother’s trek took him from Scotland to Slovenia, to Italy, to Canada, to the United States, to Switzerland, and to France.

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He travelled by plane when had to cross oceans between continents, otherwise he travelled on two wheels – the same two wheels he competed on.

Fairbrother reckons he pedalled close to 4000km as he made his way between EWS stops, which would be like riding the entire length of New Zealand and back again.

“It’s the exact same bike I’m using to compete on, and it’s a downhill bike so it’s not optimised for pedalling at all. All up it weighs 35kg with all my luggage on it,” he said.

Fairbrother still spent approximately $20,000 to follow his dream of competing on the world stage but said it would have cost much, much more had he paid for transport and accommodation and lived a more comfortable lifestyle.

The best EWS riders are signed to professional teams and have all that taken care of. The amateurs usually buy vans to sleep and travel in.

“You could easily spend $35,000, even if you do it how most people do it,” he said.

Fairbrother started the year as a school student but worked as a bike mechanic to raise money for his trip.

He said he arrived in Scotland hoping to hitch a ride between races with other competitors. But when that fell through, another Kiwi rider, Wyn Masters, challenged him to make his own way on two wheels.

“I had a goal of completing the season but I kinda went over there with no plan at all. I thought I’d just work it out as I go.

“Initially I thought I’d be able to jump in someone’s car or van and get to the next venue but that ended up being a bit harder than I thought.

“In my head it just made sense to use what I had and bike to the next venue, so that’s what I ended up doing.”

Enduro World Series races usually take place once a week or once a fortnight so Fairbrother was often in a race against the clock to make it to the start line.

His longest journey between stops was a whopping 1500km slog, which would be like riding from Auckland to Queenstown.

“If it was a normal schedule I’d have four days to get there.”

Fairbrother carried a bivvy bag with him on his bike and would sleep on the side of bike paths or on the side of the road.

“My setup was quite minimalistic. It was just a sleeping bag and a bivvy bag. In terms of sleeping it would all depend on how quick it was going to take to get to the next location.

“Sometimes I’d finish biking at 2am and get up at 6am. In that case, when there’s only a few hours of sleep I’d just pull over on the side of the footpath.

“No one would ever know I was there because no one was awake at that time.”

Despite the lack of sleep, Fairbrother said he tried not to let it affect his performance throughout the season.

“I was there to compete and I just had to get there. The lack of sleep I didn’t want to think about because it starts putting you off if you make excuses.”

He said the Netherlands was the most accessible country to bike in, able to follow dedicated bike paths most of the way.

In other countries he was “essentially just biking on a highway”.

“You’ve just got to take it as it comes and there’s no way of knowing what you’re going to find until you go and do it.”

Fairbrother was originally going to skip the three races in North America, but a supporter set up a crowdfunding campaign to help raise money for flights after hearing about his challenge.

“I ended up getting enough money to get over there, so I completed the whole season in the end.”

In fact, Fairbrother was soon inundated with offers of support from the mountain biking community as more people caught wind of what he was doing.

However, he was determined to see the challenge through.

“I had set myself a challenge at that point and had gotten so far that I thought I might as well keep it going.

“No one has ever bike-packed the whole season before so I thought it’d be cool to tick that off and be the first.”

One of his craziest experiences came when he was in the United States. He was awoken in the night by the sound of a bear rummaging through his food.

“I was sleeping in my bivvy bag and my food would’ve been about five metres to the side of me and I woke up because I could hear, you know the sound it makes when you open a bag of chips, I could hear that.

“I opened up the bivvy bag and got out and I think we were both equally as scared.

“I had a couple of encounters with bears and some moose, which I must say was quite eye-opening seeing we don’t have animals like that here.”

He also had some interesting encounters with people. A passerby thought he was “dying” when they discovered him asleep on a park bench in Scotland.

“This older guy came and found me and woke me up. He thought I was dying and came over with Coke and Wispa bars, and ‘saved me’. But we ended up chatting a bit and he was stoked with what I was doing and offered that if I was ever in his village again I could sleep at his place so that was cool.”

Fairbrother usually didn’t travel with much food.

Worried his possessions might get stolen if he left his bike outside a supermarket, he said he would usually just duck into petrol stations for snacks to consume on the go.

“It’s quite hard to have much food on the bike. My other limitation was I’ve got an expensive bike and all the stuff I own is on the bike and I’m by myself.

“I can’t just go into a city or town and leave my bike outside a supermarket.

“I’d only stop at gas stations in the middle of nowhere, like off the highway where it’d be an inconvenience to steal a bike, somewhere where there were no opportunists.”

As for his results, Fairbrother said he was stoked to pick up a 10th placing in the under-21 category in Slovenia, the result coming after his most arduous trek. To top it off, he also competed with a dislocated finger.

However, Fairbrother had no expectations for his first season on the EWS and was just stoked he managed to complete the circuit, especially after riding his way to almost every destination.

“I went overseas with no expectations. It’s my first season and New Zealand is competitive but it’s super small so you can’t compare yourself [with the rest of the world].”

“It was all up and down based off fatigue levels but I was quite stoked knowing I’m doing OK. I’ve still got a few more years in under-21 so hopefully I can start going a bit quicker and be a bit more competitive next year.”