61 - Kickin' It L.A. Style With Red Bull Athlete and Enduro Mountain Bike Champion Curtis Keene

About this Episode:

Mountain Biking as a sport has been around for a while now. Enduro Mountain biking has become the next big challenge for pros like Curtis Keene.

 

In 2012, his first year of riding the North American Enduro circuit, Curtis took home the championship. He is now shooting to show that North Americans are ready to challenge the more dominant Europeans for bragging rights in this sport.

 

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Curtis joins us to talk about his sport and his home turf in Los Angeles.

 

About Curtis:

Curtis Keene spent 10 years dominating the fast-paced world of downhill mountain biking. Then, in 2012, he decided to give the growing sport of Enduro mountain biking a try. The new discipline clearly suited him, and that year he took home the overall championships title in the North American Enduro Series. Around the world, Enduro is still mostly made up of European competitors, so it’s no wonder the nickname American Dream has stuck. 

Growing up in Fremont, California, in the San Francisco Bay Area, Keene played baseball as a kid and rode his bike for fun. He never imagined that one day, he’d ride bikes for a living.

After graduating high school, Curtis, who was then a tall and skinny 1.83m tall and 73kg, began lifting weights in the gym. He bulked up to a meaty 97.5kg.

He attended college for a few years, but decided that wasn’t for him and began working full-time in the family business as an electrician in Fremont. When he was 22, in 2001, a friend invited Curtis to Downieville, California, a tiny town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada that’s become legendary for its downhill mountain biking trails. It was his first glimpse of the mountain biking world and he'd found his calling.