Arrowsmith Mountain Bike Club president Kebble Sheaff first met Berrecloth when he was around 11 and full into BMX.
“He used to come into the shop and we’d end up working on his bike into well after closing,” chucked Sheaff, who runs Arrowsmith Mountain Cycle, and explained how Berrecloth has been a part of the local bike scene since.
And while much of Berrecloth’s earlier years were spent building dirt jumps around these parts pretty much wherever he could (some of which are still in use today), mountain biking is in his blood.
“I remember building a trail with him in the 90s and then you wouldn’t see him for a while and then he’d reappear …he was all over the place.”
Whatever the ride, Berrecloth has always pushed the envelope when it comes to his bikes.
Sheaff recalled one year when Berrecloth showed up at the Hammerfest DH “with a garbage bike, I mean bald tires, loose chain, and he beat everyone.
“He changed freeride mountain biking. Coming from BMX, he brought tricks to mountain biking,” Sheaff went on to explain, adding that until around 2002 free riding was just about doing drops, but that all changed when Berrecloth, using a borrowed bike, wrangled his way into one of the biggest freeride events in the world (by invite only), the Red Bull Rampage in Utah, where he put his stamp on the sport by becoming the first mountain bike rider to pull off a ‘360’ in competition (a complete spin in the air) and went on to finish third in a field featuring the top riders in the world at the time.
“No one knew who he was back then,” said Sheaff, adding “he blew them away and everything changed from there. You look at freeride, which has turned into slopestyle, and it’s huge, and he’s been a big part of that, which is crazy for a guy from little Parksville.”
