After a breakout ride in Lousa, 2020, Jamie Edmondson was one of the big signings of last winter. Joining Valentina Höll on the freshly-minted RockShox-Trek team he was a rider many of us had our eyes on through 2021. While Valentina had a wild rollercoaster of a year, in comparison Jamie’s was a decidedly more low-key affair, at least in the downhill. What many of us on the outside forget is that signing for a factory team, while exciting, can be a lot to try and figure out especially if you’re a young racer still learning what you need to race.
We sat down with Jamie as he popped over to the South of France for a couple of days of testing with his team this winter and looked back on his season. We talked about what drives him to race both World Cups and EWS, the learning curve of racing for a factory team and focusing on the process to be happy.
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If I could be happy with every race run, then the results will figure themselves out. |
How are you doing?
Good, thank you. It’s nice to be back riding downhill. I haven’t ridden it much since the last World Cup, so it’s good to be back. I feel like I was when we left off, which is always nice to get that early in the winter.
How was the season for you?
It was… mixed. Lots of highs and lows. There were a few races where I think my head wasn’t quite right and that sort of let me down, or a few where I was puzzling. But it was good overall. I felt like by the end, those last three World Cups I was definitely where I want it to be. That’s where I would like to be all year and I know now what I need to do to be there coming into the start next year. The Enduro went as good as I could have hoped, really.
You got the EWS Under 21 title, didn’t you?
Yeah, I managed to. That came down to the last stage of the last race to win the series. But yeah, that was cool to get that ticked off this year, for sure. I was stoked.
I was following enduro when all the downhillers were really down on it. It’s quite cool seeing young guys like you coming through it and say “It’s just riding bikes.”
Yeah, exactly. I just enjoy it, and it feels like it’s good training. I’d rather race my enduro bike for a weekend than do a big, long road ride. It keeps me racing and it’s pretty good. And the way enduro seems to be going now, it’s more and more downhill-focused, which suits me and suits training for downhill.
The thing that interests me from seeing you in the videos is that I didn’t realize you were going to be quite such a big guy. From your riding style, I didn’t put the two together.
I guess I’m still young and still growing, but I’ve also been doing it for long enough now that I’ve kind of grown. I’ve always had a very similar style and my body has grown around that. I’ve got bigger and stronger and I’ve kept that style as opposed to plowing it into stuff too much if I can avoid it.
How do you think you ended up with that style?
I think just ride UK tracks and I grew up racing British Nationals and Scottish races where it’s never a big French track where you’re plowing down a ski piste. You have to be light. A lot of times you can’t touch the roots because they’re so slick. You’re never quite just leaning in off the back of it, swinging down the turns. You have to be light and smooth, and you see a lot of the UK guys do ride like that. You see Laurie and people like that, and how smooth they all are because of that.
I suppose the big question is how is it going from you and your dad trying to do everything to where we’re sitting now, in a room with 20 trek bicycles and every tool, you know? How has it been for you to get that kind of support?
It’s a bit surreal. Every now I think about what I’m doing. It’s like, “Oh, I’m going away and to go testing.” I’m getting paid to go away and test bikes that no one’s even seen before, or parts or whatever. And people value my opinions. It’s such a lucky position to be in. But a big step up. There are a few bits that have to learn because when I was a privateer, I made all the decisions. So if I didn’t like something, I could change it or if I did I stuck with it. The team’s got nothing but good sponsors, and that’s been good. It’s been so cool to work with the people that make the different parts and components so closely, I’ve never had that opportunity. RockShox has been so good in letting us see what they are doing and working with us on that, as opposed to saying, “Here’s a new product, set it up or we’ll help you set it up.” It’s been more, “Here’s what we’re thinking of doing in the future. What do you think?” That’s a cool process to be a part of.
JT [Jamie’s mechanic] was saying that the guys at Rockshox are impressed with the feedback you are giving them.
It sounds a bit weird, but I’d always thought of it as I just complained a lot. Eventually, I started saying the right things to the right people who could fix my complaints and they valued it. I would say, “I don’t like this on my bike,” but the people I was saying it to previously maybe couldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t do anything about it because I was buying my bike. So it was like, “Oh, I wish this bike had a little bit more of this” or something… And now I’m in a position where the guy who I’m saying that to designed it two years ago and he’s like, “OK, cool. Well, we’ll work on that for the next one,” or “This is the feedback we wanted.” Where I still feel like my feedback is me saying, “Oh, this is too stiff” or “This is too flexy,” I’m not necessarily thinking like an engineer, I’m just thinking, “What’s wrong?” I don’t know how to make it better most of the time. Sometimes I do. And that’s been a cool thing to be a part of and to see how much they value that, for sure.
Something you said yesterday that stuck is when you were joking about doing PE for a living. I was really into that because you’re a very serious athlete, you train, you work hard. But fundamentally, we’re all just doing this because we like riding bikes.
Yeah, I think that’s the thing about it. We’re keeping it fun. I think if I got to the point where I was taking it so seriously that I hated it, I couldn’t do it anymore. I love racing, but racing is just another way to help me do my dream and ride my bike every day. I’d still be stoked if I could just ride every day. I’m so competitive at the moment and racing is what I want to do. Yeah, hopefully in the future I can keep riding regardless.
I think it’s been really interesting to spend a couple of days with your team, seeing the kind of vibe they’ve created. I get the impression they’re not too performance-focused for the time being, the kind of idea being that if you guys have time and space, you know you’ll get it done.
I wouldn’t say it’s not performance-focused, but it’s performance-focused based on what we’re wanting and needing. We are lucky to be in a place where if I said, here’s Item X, I think if we had this at the races or we had this in the off-season, I could perform better. Can we get it? They’re super supportive of all that. At the same time, they’re not saying, here’s a strict diet plan that you’re on in off-camp training, or here are the things that you have to do. It’s like, you, do you. And as long as that’s working they’ll support whatever you do. I think that’s been better and it brings a good vibe to the pits and the team because everyone’s having fun and everyone’s happy. I think we all race and ride better when we’re happy. So for the team to be able to put us in that position the best they can has been really good.
What’s in your head for this year? Say we’re talking this time next year, what would you like to have happened to be happy this time next year?
I think just to have found a bit of solid consistency and get my head in where it needs to be. I think I’ve learned a lot from this year in terms of what my head game needs, where I need to be physically and what I need in terms of getting the bike ready. I want to be able to say that at every race I did that. I gave it everything, and there are no regrets in terms of being like, “I held back here in this section and it cost me a good result” or whatever. I want to be happy. If I could be happy with every race run, then the results will figure themselves out. Because I think there’s so much going on in downhill – the race takes two hours to run from the first guy down to the last guy. There’s so much with the weather, the track, injuries and mechanicals that actually, I think if I can be happy with every run I do and think I couldn’t have gone any better, that’s more important for me than saying “I want to get top 20 every race.” Because in some races you could put your best run and it puts you in 30th, but if you keep doing those best runs and eventually I think it tallies up and you get the results.
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I’d rather race my enduro bike for a weekend than do a big, long road ride. |
I was talking to a team manager early in the year, and not to name the riders, but he signed a couple and asked them what they thought they could do that year. He didn’t want to put too much pressure on them, but both riders said “I want a top 10.” And when both of them didn’t get to that line they lost their deals.
Yeah, I think the thing is that you could say “I want to be 10th,” but the nine guys in front of you crash and you win or 10 other guys put down the best run of their life, risk their lives, and you end up twentieth. And that’s where I want to focus more on myself, putting down the perfect run, and being happy. If I can do everything I can, the results will figure themselves out. I think that’s what I learned a lot from those races in Portugal in 2020. Yeah, those two races where I was 10th and fourth. They were the best I could do at the time and I was stoked on the run, regardless of the position. I could have gone 10 places back and still been stoked. Whereas there were a few where I’ve had a decent result, especially in the enduro, for example, where I’ve finished the stage and been disappointed. I was way too cautious or I didn’t push hard enough in a section, but the results have been good still, but I didn’t necessarily have the best performance. And that meant more for me than the actual saying, I came first in this stage or seventh in the stage or whatever it was, it was more about how I performed and getting that perfect run.
Yeah, that makes sense. I think I misspoke earlier, maybe I should have said the team is focused on trying to make sure you guys have long careers.
Yeah, I think there’s definitely a lot of that, and they definitely want us to. They’re keen for us to learn about the whole process of marketing ourselves, working with engineers to develop bikes, doing all that as a process, and then developing ourselves as racers so that we can give it our best shot for a long time. Not just, “You’ve got a two-year contract, at the end of this year we want you in first place or you’re gone.” Yeah, they’re not like that and I think that’s good for our side, for sure.
I don’t want to ask you about your goals for 10 years time, I don’t think it matters right now, does it? You’re racing your bike and having fun.
Yeah, I think they probably won’t change the whole time either. I want to have fun and keep doing it. I want to still be riding my bike in 10 years’ time, whether that’s racing or whether that’s working with, companies, brands, marketing, whatever. I think just riding my bike, staying competitive while I enjoy it, and keep going from there.
