How To Make Money From Mountain Biking

It’s not always easy turning your hobby into a career, but there are many paths into the mountain bike industry that you may not have thought of. Former professional riders-turned-influencers, Neil Donoghue and Blake Samson share their insights on how they have earned a living from MTB and many different ways in which you can too.

⏱ Timestamps ⏱
00:00 – Intro
00:16 – Pro Rider
02:40 – Creator
04:16 – Buying & Selling
05:45 – Influencer
07:00 – Merchandise
07:32 – Writer/Journalist
07:49 – Mechanic
09:01 – Pro Rider Starting Teams
09:31 – Set Up Your Own Bike Company
10:22 – Invent Something

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who doesn’t like making money from something they love doing like a hobby I’ve been doing it for the past two decades yeah in this video we’re talking about living the dream and making money from mountain biking okay let’s start with the obvious one cuz we both got experience start with being a pro Rider Blake start with you how long were you a pro Rider and how did it start out well I was a pro for over a decade it all kicked off because as a youngster you really wanted a free bike you wanted a free hmer you wanted a free kit you didn’t really want to spend your own money on stuff that you’re going to break so I put in all the time into training to Perfect all those tricks and a good solid run hit my first competition which was a local one it was king of dirt in the UK and I went there and I it was my debut no one knew who I was and I just put down a good run got spotted and from there it was history I did a number of photo photos to get out there and a CV and I got picked up by DMR so we did it separately you were a free rider I was a racer but similar kind of thing we were the old days before social media and all that for me racing obviously it was all about race results I started young I built you know like I said same as you riding all the time start to get better and then the sponsorship built I didn’t all of a sudden turn pro I got a bit of support got lent bikes and then given bikes and kit and everything until eventually in 2000 I was offered a paycheck uh and then I was Pro 15 years but even then I started off on a small paycheck yeah a very small one I never got very big like what was the most you got paid for being a pro Rider o it’s quite controversial but no I did I got paid a roughly about 55 grand at the end that was good that was good that was accumulation of bonuses stuck in there and multiple sponsorships that’s why you see loads of logos on sponsored Riders because each individual one will give you a little pay check and that all goes into a pot which accumulates over a number of months and years and the harder you work the more you get the harder you give you know the more you give to a sponsor very good very good at it Blake as well see I kind of almost got there but that was during my later years not just in sponsorship I became Semi-Pro and then I did mbike coaching as well so yeah I earn similar I guess in those later days so one thing to take away from number one is it doesn’t come easy it comes with a lot of hard work and I’ve got a lot of friends that were as good as me but for whatever reason didn’t quite make it so yeah it’s not an easy route to follow number two being a Creator now one thing I took away from being a professional was that it wasn’t all about the competitions I started to enter the world of being a Creator start to create some video content some editorial content because there’s more to say about promoting the products that you write for or promoting yourself via video than it is doing it by competition because if you’re in a comp you need to be at the top to be noticed whereas in the video and the power of social media you can get yourself out there a lot quicker and you get a lot more notice from Brands out there so you can become a pro and you don’t have to do that by sending it in a competition now there’s one thing to be said about if you’re friends with a professional you can go out there help them create content and in return they can help film yourself and get ition build your profile that way now when it comes to being an amateur Creator you think you need to go out there and spend a lot of thousands of pounds on kit to film yourself no not really all you need is your mobile phone maybe an action camera so you can stick it on yourself but one of the most important things is audio having really good audio in your videos is definitely going to boost your content so people can engage with sounds and stuff that’s going on all the sounds that your bike would make whilst you’re going down the Trail but it’s not just about the bike and the riding it’s also about your voice you got to express that voice of yours make sure you people can hear it if it’s if it’s windy out there you don’t want to hear this and trying to talk and stuff no good audio is key especially if you’re a vlogger now some people can make money by buying and selling Parts I think if you buy the right bike for cheap enough and actually you can make money by selling it as Parts however you’ve got to have the knowledge for what you’re looking for but also the skills to sort of clean and maintain these things and then Market them places like eBay or Facebook Marketplace obviously don’t forget there are some costs involved with things like eBay yeah exactly now if you’ve got some friends in the uh professional industry and they are pro riders they want to get rid of their kit at the end of the season and they come with a lot of kits so you could ask them if you could sell all of their EXs kit on the interweb and take a small cut now if they’ve been generous they could probably offer you up to 20% of a cut of what you sell for them however I think this one probably is all about making a bit of pocket money maybe you’re not going to make a full-time living by buying or selling bike parts however I do have a friend on the AL of white who started Scouting For Parts which did exactly this would get everyone’s spare parts put them in a big jumble sale sell them on the Internet get a small cup from everyone but then he moved on and he started up Tai Springs so can be done you can make your your fortunes on the interweb but uh it’s really hard work you finished with your bike ni it’s my bike all right I get off I think the olens will go really well on eBay the world of the influencer a bit like being a professional athlete now there’s a much greater range of mountain bikes you don’t have to compete but you can actually harness things like social media and YouTube to make a living the hard thing about it is trying to find something that’s a little bit different something interesting for someone to watch like your beautiful viewers out there now for the likes of Matt Jones and Sam Pilgrim yes they are pro riders and they do get paid to ride their bike but they’re finding other avenues of finding an income by using YouTube for their ad revenue or you know doing adverts on YouTube social media using Instagram for ads as well getting paid from that different avenue is all places where they can make their money also another one is merchandise is another great one when you’ve built such a big profile it’s quite simple to just build up a brand like a clothing a t-shirt socks gloves whatever you name it they can sell it via their social media and Via all their video contents as well by wearing it so there’s all different Avenues where you can make money but to get to the top is really hard but the main thing is finding something that’s a little bit different but unique to to your beautiful viewers many pros and influencers actually can supplement their income with these micro brands that can start off with just selling things like socks or grips or even stickers but actually some of the bigger names we use drop ship services to uh actually sort of produce and package what they’re selling and they can have big ranges of things like clothing all sorts of things and they’re using the Goodwill that’s associated with them their brand their following to sell lots of merchandise and actually make lots of [Music] money there used to be quite a deep field of writers and journalists working for magazines but unfortunately that market is in Decline however of course there are things like websites but that does feel like quite a small club and quite a hard Market to get into now one way getting money out of the industry is being a mechanic be it is working in a bike shop or being a pro race mechanic now with industry nowadays bike shops still make money by fixing customers bikes selling bikes uh working on different kinds of bikes and one good thing about working for a local bike shop is that they can put you through training and also you get a nice glimpse into marketing another one is working from home or on the road so in your shed in the house or out the back of a van but you got to take note you need the tools for that you need the knowledge and you need some cycle industry inside to get some trade accounts so you can get keeper cost parts for the bike that you’ll be servicing you could be quite specialist like working on suspension out the back of your van at some local races set up at 10 maybe go to a bike park you can work on people’s suspension there or out the back of your house as well or you could just build wheels at home and give them to customers online sales is perfect or you can do dream builds for customers they give you a wish list you go out there you spend their money and they pay you for building the bike doesn’t come very often but it could pay well now this one is probably quite Niche but some pro riders set up their own teams so this is probably left the most experienced Riders they go there they don’t want to be riding for a team where the destiny of their living is in the hand of a team manager so they take that into their own hands they go and do the sponsorship deals themselves get a team to come arve for them however I think this is best left for the most experienced Riders and business people and I say having a good accountant is going to be very important setting up your own bike company this one feels like it’s a dream for many people but super hard to do how you going to make your bike different to everyone else is but also that they’re going to want it Tech moved on so much now how you going to do it I don’t know you’re going to build in your set and build a crab do you want a crab no I don’t thank you very much we’ve seen Brands like YT like disruptive cool brands that have built this thing where it’s a different business model as well direct customers so they can make it cheaper yeah like super high-end Innovative Brands like aeton that make these customizable tech bikes that people can choose how they want them or even big Brands like Canyon that have completely overhauled their bike range to become massive Brands how are you going to compete with that do it in your shed and build a crab do you want a crab I don’t want a crab where’s the Gap in the market I’m not sure I’d ever have the courage to launch a bike R nor do I but you invent something NE now the one that always comes to mind for me is something like the crud ccher the original mgar from the ’90s that cost pennies to make and could be sold for I don’t know 2020 uh arguably nowadays there’s more Brands offering mgar that could do something a little bit better yeah but Crow catch was there at the right time the right place and famously made Millions out of it as well exactly or think another box getting rid of a bottle cage and using magnets to hold your bottle on your bike genius but I have invented something coming very soon which is a huge gap in the market yeah and be can can be quite um catastrophic if it catastrophic or do you mean disruptive teaser for what Blake has invented I actually know something about this is quite impressive I’m not sure you going to make millions out of it how do you how do you feel about it I can see million signs in my my eyeballs yeah anyway there is a big there’s there’s as big as the market is there is Tiny gaps within it if you can find them you could potentially make a lot of money in the industry finding them some of our ideas I’ve actually got you know other friends I I know someone who owns a bike shop I know someone that does the catering for a big Factory racing team I know coaches I know Pros yeah we know a few I know Pros I know Pros I know you we work in the industry there must be something else we haven’t thought of that another way of making out mountain biking but let us know in the comments down below if you’re in the industry and we’ve forgotten it but we can inspire people to get involved they’re probably work in the factory that make the tires yeah it’s a good idea