BEING A SUCCESSFUL PRO RIDER ISN’T JUST ABOUT GUTS AND GLORY. IT ALSO TAKES HARD WORK, PUTS YOU AT RISK OF SERIOUS INJURY AND REQUIRES A HEFTY DOSE OF GOOD FORTUNE, AS FREERIDER DARYL BROWN NOW KNOWS ONLY TOO WELL
Words & pics Steve Behr
D aryl Brown is a lucky guy.
It could also be argued that he’s unlucky. The evidence? After a knee operation in January 2023, he’d only been back on the bike a matter of weeks when he fell onto a metal stake, which punctured the inside of his upper arm. Unlucky. Fortunately, it missed a vital artery, by not very much at all. Lucky!
Recovering relatively quickly, he headed out to South Africa for Darkfest. Calling this a freeride event is underselling it, really – it’s packed with the biggest jumps that Daryl’s friend and regular riding companion Sam Reynolds can put together, in a spectacular location near Stellenbosch, and attended by a crew of world-class riders who push each other further and harder for the best part of a week. Surviving that with no serious crashes? Lucky.
But, a few weeks after returning, an innocent over-jump at Woburn Sands saw him crash into a tree and break his femur (thigh). Now that’s unlucky, but on the plus side, he didn’t sever his femoral artery, which would likely have caused him to bleed out and die.
Then, there’s what he does for a living. “Professional mountain bike athlete and coach” is what it would say on his business card, if those were still a thing. Which in most people’s view, makes him very lucky indeed. That doesn’t make it an easy job, though. It takes work to get a pro deal, keep your sponsors happy and stay in shape.
On the attack
The first time I remember seeing Daryl was back in the early 2000s, at MBUK’s competition to find the ‘Unknown Duke of Dirt’. He was this tiny kid from Hailsham, just outside Eastbourne, about 12 years old, I think, and already a regular at Penshurst Off-Road Club (PORC). And boy, could he ride! Although he was under the minimum age to officially enter, the talent was obvious already.
Over the years, he honed his skills at PORC, Friston Forest, The Bull Track and every other bike park in the South East. Daryl soon picked up sponsorship, competing on the dirt jump scene for many years, then progressing through slopestyle to big bikes. He also gained the nickname ‘Sharky’, after a commentator described his one-handed Superman seatgrab as a “shark attack�
