{"id":153686,"date":"2025-09-22T19:27:22","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T19:27:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/153686\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T19:27:22","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T19:27:22","slug":"andrew-doddy-dodd-i-landed-a-career-in-mountain-biking-by-breaking-wheels-forks-and-my-nose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/153686\/","title":{"rendered":"Andrew ‘Doddy’ Dodd: I landed a career in mountain biking by breaking wheels, forks\u2026 and my nose"},"content":{"rendered":"

Self-professed mountain biking super-fan Andrew Dodd has done all sorts during his career, from TV and YouTube presenting to his current role as global brand communications manager for Mondraker Bikes.<\/p>\n

But it all started in the pages of MBUK, back in the late 1990s. <\/p>\n

We had a long chat with Doddy for the MBUK Podcast, during which we covered all sorts of topics \u2013 including how it all began for him.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cMy dad\u2019s friend, who he played badminton with, gave me a carrier bag of [MBUK] mags, back to #1, which I still have,\u201d recalls Doddy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was hooked and I was like, \u2018I\u2019m gonna work there at some point!\u2019. Eventually, I got work experience, in \u201999. I was building wheels and doing useful stuff, and got kind of chummy with Paul Smith. He was reviews editor at the time, and he gave me some bits to test, including a set of Stratos FR 4 forks.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat basically ended up being the way I got my job [on MBUK], because I broke those, and broke my nose, my cheek and my eye socket, and wrote a letter about looking like Joseph Merrick [the famous \u2018Elephant Man\u2019] and they seemed to find it funny [please remember this was in the decidedly un-PC 1990s, ed].”<\/p>\n

\"AndrewDoddy on the cover of MBUK. Mountain Biking UK<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said, \u2018You should apply for this job\u2019, so I did,\u201d adds Doddy.<\/p>\n

Starting in the junior role of production assistant, Doddy got the chance to ride loads of bikes and began to do a bit of writing. Then he was thrown in at the deep end with his first feature trip.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d been at the mag maybe a month,\u201d he says. \u201cTym Manley, the editor, rang me up and said, \u2018What are you doing next week? Pack lots of things for cold weather\u2019. That\u2019s about all he told me.<\/p>\n

\"MBUKYoung Doddy hanging out with Martyn Ashton, Franck Roman, Martin Hawyes and Rob Warner during his trip. Steve Behr \/ Our Media<\/p>\n

\u201cSteve Geall [pioneering UK MTB dirt jumper] came and picked me up in the massive Nissan Patrol thing we had, then we picked up Steve Behr [photographer], Martyn Ashton and Martin Hawyes [the biggest MTB trials riders of the day], and Rob Warner [Downhill World Cup star], and drove to Annecy.<\/p>\n

“Hawsie and Martyn were basically drilling me for 17 hours, to the point where I couldn\u2019t laugh anymore. By the end of it, they were like, \u2018Yeah, he\u2019s alright actually\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was amazing. We got to Pete Tomkins\u2019 place [of Crud Catcher and Dirt video fame], rode bikes in the snow and hung out for a few days.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we drove south all the way down to Barcelona, via David V\u00e1zquez, Oscar Saiz [both famous Spanish downhill racers of the time], Ot Pi [pioneering bike-trials rider] and Jordi Tarr\u00e9s [motorcycle trials legend].<\/p>\n

\u201cJordi was, like, the king, and we went to his house \u2013 that\u2019s the only time, still, I\u2019ve seen Martyn Ashton with nothing to say.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a nod to his future career, not only did Doddy meet some huge names, but he recorded the whole thing for posterity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made a video from it,” he says. “I don\u2019t think it was DV cameras on those early ones \u2013 it might have been a full-size [VHS] cassette going in. It was pretty ropey. I remember just videoing everything, thinking it should be filmed.<\/p>\n

\"AndrewDoddy doing a DJ set at the Malverns Classic mountain bike festival in August 2023. Steve Behr \/ Our Media<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we ended up putting it out as a cover mount. I don\u2019t have a copy of it, and I\u2019d like to see it again. There\u2019s bits and pieces people have uploaded on YouTube, but someone, somewhere will have the master. It\u2019d be pretty cool to drag it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doddy would go on to take part in plenty more trips, with carnage often ensuing \u2013 especially if Gee Atherton was involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was long before health and safety was a thing. Tym Manley would basically give me a wad of cash, travellers’ cheques, and be like, \u2018Make sure everyone\u2019s fed and watered and comes back\u2019, and that was the brief,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n

But that two-week road trip through France and Spain was a pretty bold way to start his career with MBUK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Self-professed mountain biking super-fan Andrew Dodd has done all sorts during his career, from TV and YouTube presenting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-153686","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}