Matt Hunter

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    Enduro

    Climb Higher. Descend Farther.

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Enduro

I was born in Kamloops, British Columbia in 1983. Singletrack zigzags through the hills behind my parents' house; bikes were freedom. I explored the hills and trails wherever and whenever I could. I was 12 when I got into XC racing. I was really into it until I was about 15, when I started focusing more on DH riding. Some of my friends who I raced with made the same transition, and we started to learn together. We started building big jumps and aggressive trails. We filmed ourselves riding and I made a short video. I entered the video in an online contest, the "Ultimate Freeride Challenge" and ended up winning. That was the beginning of my sponsored career in 2003. Specialized sponsored me then and I have been with Specialized ever since.

My focus has always been shooting photos and filming video segments, that is what I love to do. I really enjoy finding adventure in the mountains - whether it be challenging moves and airs or maybe it's a multiple day ride.

I like watching big mountain skiers and snowboarders, the way they shred the mountains in the snow inspires me on dirt. Besides riding, I surf, fish, and backcountry ski as much as I can.

Sponsors: Specialized, Shimano, Clif Bar, Chromag, MRP, IXS, Fox Racing Shox, Dakine, Contour

When it comes to secrets

July 20, 2012

When it comes to secrets, it seems they are either easy to keep or very, very hard. But what happens when your secret is a bike? You can't completely hide it - you're riding it around, it's in the truck box on the road, it's a bright blue-super-sick-future-lookin-bad-ass-carbon-mountain-taming-suspension rig! To a mountain biker, it's as eye catching as a new model sports car is to a motorhead.

This has been a problem for the past couple of months, my secret to keep. My new Enduro has been in my eager and sweaty hands for a while now and while mountain people scope it pretty hard when it goes by, the secret has been safe and sound.

In Utah last week, the cat was out of the bag. I traveled there to join a group of journalists for the launch of the new 2013 Enduro and many other bikes. I had a great time, and everyone else there did too because we are all riders who were invited to a mountain town surrounded by singletrack, and all told to go test ride the future.

This area features one of my favourite trails ever. It has a stunningly fast singletrack descent. The kind where your hands still shake at the bottom and just one high five doesn't seem like quite enough. I posted a video of the last time I rode it but managed to forget just how amazing the trail is.

Well, we rode it again and I think it got better. It's just so fast. There are huge rock sections that pass underneath you in one bunnyhop, and long, smooth corners that don't require brakes. Blazing through aspens on a flowy roller-coaster. Yes, it's that good.

My excitement got the better of me on my birthday ride on this trail. The day previous, my grip lost a chunk of rubber to an inside cut off log on a smooth right hand turn, but I stayed upright. It was a close call but no price was paid. The next day, on the same log, I wasn't so lucky. I clipped my bar and went pinballing through the trees at high speed! I emerged almost unscathed except for a little piece of wood sticking into my left cheek from where I hit a tree. I consider myself really lucky to not have been hurt any more than this.

Either way, it was a great trip to Utah. I'm writing this as I'm on my way to my next adventure, Specialized Days in Japan.

Go for a ride!

Matt

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