After a succession of broken kids bikes I graduated to a real road bike, with skinny tires, aluminum chain wheels and toe straps. Wow. I jumped a curb on my first ride and the skinny front tire caught in a sewer grate, flipping me over onto the sidewalk with the bike firmly attached to my feet. And there were people watching! Soon afterwards I found my first mountain bike - a rigid fork, bio paced U brake wonder. It was both wonderful and not very good, and I constantly changed bikes, looking for the perfect balance of climbing ability, stability and fit. 

In 1993 I designed my own. Sandvik Special Metals agreed to build several custom titanium frames for me. I used the best bike I had found, a Kona hei hei, as a starting point, and varied the dimensions in a way that I thought would improve its handling and balance. The result was the first "proto-type" Hillside frame, which I thought was an improvement on the Kona geometry. I also realized that others might think so, and it was at this point that I looked for a local bike-shop ally, both to get some outside feedback on what I was doing and possibly to sell my frames. 

I approached Chaz Romalis, owner of the Deep Cove Bike Shop, and he agreed to work on the project with me. I had purchased my hei hei from Chaz, and I liked his non-conformist style. Chaz tried my proto-type, and passed it around a number of appropriately sized riders. They all loved it, and they made a few suggestions as to potential improvements. I made some changes to the design, and the second proto-type was built and circulated to rave reviews. I continued tweaking tube dimensions and thicknesses, and adjusting the design for different sizes. When the designs and component specification was finalized, I contracted production to Norco Products. We called the bike "The Hummer," and in the summer of 1994 a North Shore legend was born. Deep Cove Bikes continues to use my design today. 

I wanted more control over the way my bikes were presented and fitted, so I decided to open my own shop. And I wanted something special, not only a place for cyclists  to buy their stuff, but a place to meet and talk. So I designed and built a combination bike shop/restaurant on the waterfront of West Vancouver. The restaurant is chalet style, made with very heavy fir timbers and planked floors, with a sloped copper roof and a very large fire place. It is intended to convey the warmth and comfort of an "apres-ski" atmosphere, representing a meeting place both for cyclists and the general community. And this is where Hillside Mountain Bikes are made, fitted and sold.

Major commercial interests are adopting this sport, turning it into an endless sales opportunity, with pointless technical changes intended to make people think they need something new. In the process, everything that mountain biking is about is getting left behind. I am not anti-commercial. I build and sell things for a living. But the direction our civilization seems to be going sucks, and I think that the style of consumerism from which we all suffer trivializes community, humanity and life. My life's work is to find ways to reverse this, and mountain biking is a part of that.