Jason English - the 24hr Champion

Jason English at a glance

Lives: Port Macquarie

Profession: High school teacher of PDHPE and a range of other health and sports subjects

Years racing mountain bikes: 19

Training hours per week (on average): 15ish

AMB: Like most top Aussie mountain bikers you’ve got a full-time day job. Tell us what you do and how you fit your training and racing in around school (as well as family commitments!).

JE: Life starts at 4:25am as I ride to meet a 5:00am group each morning. I try to be home by 7:30am so I can make it to school by 8:15am. I leave school most days around 4:30pm and head home to hang out with the kids while Jen gets dinner ready which is normally served around 6pm. By the time a 1 and three year old are fed, bathed and in bed it’s often 8pm when I start getting myself sorted for the following day on the bike and at work. While I am a teacher four days a week, this year I look after our kids 1 day per week so Jen can keep her foot in the door as a dietician. I am loving the chance to hang out with the kids on this day as I often abandon them on weekends to go racing!

AMB: You’ve recently signed with Pivot, JetBlack, and Shimano. Could you tell us a bit about your new bikes, what gear you’re running, any changes you’ve made to the setup, and how they ride, etc.

JE: At this stage I have a Pivot Mach 4 Carbon 27.5 which I rode for the first time in Rotorua [at the NDuro 24 hour] and had it set up way too soft. While it was super comfortable, it wasn’t being playful on the little doubles. The second ride I got on the bike has promoted this bike to my favourite bike of all time. This bike is setup running 2×10 XTR. Ideally I was keen to use 1×11 however these components are still pretty hard to come by. The bike sports Stans NoTubes Valor wheels, which are fantastic. The only real custom mods I have done to the bike is to use a super light Mt Zoom handle bar, and San Marco Saddle.

AMB: What got you into mountain bikes and then racing? Tell us a bit about how you got started?

JE: My dad got a mountain bike back in 1991 (when I was 11) and the following year he decked out the whole family. I only really started racing after talent identification at school lined me up with the Hunter Mountain Bike Association and my parents started taking me and my brother to racing once a month. Before racing, I only knew the mountain bike as a method for mustering the cattle on the farm.

AMB: What do you think of mountain biking as a school sport? What would be the benefits of including it on a curriculum compared to more traditional Aussie sports like football, swimming, and cricket?

JE: I have loved doing school sport or school camps with a mountain bike focus. In the past I have taken kids to Alice Springs for stage races, Adelaide, Canberra and Bright for National Championship events and New Zealand for the Taupo Challenge. Last year our Duke of Edinburgh students visited all the mountain bike trails around the Newcastle area including Awaba, Glenrock, Jesmond and Taree.

Mountain biking offers similar benefits to traditional team sports, such as skill development, fitness, leadership, teamwork and fun. I feel mountain biking is unique in that lots of theoretical content can be derived from mountain bike-specific examples.

In PDHPE, mountain biking and cycling provides a clear link with road safety, risk taking, training, nutrition, body image, harm minimisation, etc. I can see easy links in Geography and Commerce with the planning of mountain bike trips both domestically and internationally. The Hospitality students could cover nutrition for performance and design a range of sports foods and diets for endurance athletes. Physics classes could look at gravity, conservation of energy, potential and kinetic energy and Design and Technology could look at the stresses on bikes and look at different material and design options. If I had more mountain bike obsessed students I’m sure I could teach my PASS [physical activity and sports studies] class using nothing but mountain biking as examples and application for all content!

AMB: You recently posted a video on YouTube for your students on carb loading. Can you tell us why you did this and how you use your mountain bike racing in your teaching? How much do the students know about your successes – ever worn the 24-hour World Champ’s jersey at assembly?

JE: I was going to carb load for an Everesting attempt I was doing anyway, so the video was pretty easy to setup. I guess the idea came from one of the practical applications I do with my year 12 class. This involves taking the kids to an RSL buffet for lunch with the aim to consume half the daily requirements of an elite athlete in one sitting. The students take a picture of each plate of food they consume and analyse it using an app like MyFitnessPal. When back at school they all create a presentation that demonstrates the amount of carbs, protein, fat and energy per plate. The students learn heaps about what is in the various types of food and start to choose carefully after a few plates to hit their required carb intake.

I’m not too sure how many students know about my double life. When we take the kids to the beach for school sport we drive past the local bike shop which has a massive picture of me, with my name and “Home of the 24-Hour World Champion”. Every few years a student will ask if that is me! I haven’t really done much with my school in regards to being a World Champ. I guess the novelty has worn off a little! In other schools I have pulled wheelies through the assembly halls, ridden up onto the stage to present awards or talk about dedication, commitment to hard work or goal setting.

AMB: Do you train yourself or get help from a coach? What’s it take to train for 24-hour racing at the top level? How have you learnt to manage recovery and fatigue?

JE: I have really only ever done my own thing. I bought a Stages power meter after our second child was born with the idea that it will help me train smarter. I am finally going to do that with the help of [training software] Today’s Plan and Mark Fenner. I’m thinking it couldn’t hurt… I love training for 24-hour events, it gives me a chance to go exploring, where I often get lost, run out of food and water and have a great time! I also can handle the nice gentle intensity. When I am doing big volume rides, I am just careful to back off the intensity. Pre-kids I used to ride 1000km a week during the school holidays!

AMB: What drives you to participate in particular events? Personal challenges? New places?

JE: I love the idea of going to new places, so far this year two out of two locations have been new for me. I’m looking forward to the reversal in the Convict 100, the chance to do the last Capital Punishment, the improvements and jumps at the 12-hours in the Piney. The concept of gravity racing is also a change and if they are conveniently located I’ll also give these a go. I’m also looking forward to the rest of the Evocities series and the new trails that I will get to see.

AMB: You’ve been 24-hour World Champ five times in a row, have had huge success in domestic races over a range of distances, and Everested on a fixie fuelled by eggs. What keeps you motivated, especially once you’ve achieved so much?

JE: I guess having a wife and sponsors that are keen to see me keep racing is very important. I wasn’t sure I would have a bike to ride this year, so I am very thankful to JetBlack for supporting my desire to keep racing with Shimano-equipped Pivots. Just having a new bike makes me want to race. The Mach 4 27.5 is such a fun bike!

I guess I also like a bit of a challenge. The Coffee Ride [where Jason saw how far he could ride on two cups of coffee and nothing else] and the Eggeresting attempts (both YouTube vids) are both silly experiments that I have had fun doing. As I had completed an Everesting attempt in the past I thought I would just try and make it a little harder by going the fixie and egg only. It was a bit of a social media experiment to see how many people would like to see me suffer to raise some money for a shade covering for a local park! The Coffee Ride was just a test to see how far I could ride at a lowish intensity with full glycogen from serious carb loading on the previous day