Matt Berry | Sport

Hi, Matt Berry here. I am a 16-year-old kid living in Cambridge, Waikato. Me and my family moved down to Cambridge from Auckland when I was 13 for a better lifestyle and the chance to pursue the sport I love, cycling/mountain biking. I started racing bikes when I was 8 years of age through BMX. This specific sport created a awesome base plate for my biking career, it taught me that racing is very cut throat… and I loved it! I loved the competitive aspect but to be competitive within the age group I found out you had to put in countless number of hours work off the startline. My dad especially would dedicate his time after work and on weekends to take me down to the track working on skills, sprints or tactics. He showed me the importance of dedication and hard work. I pushed myself riding with faster racers trying to get a tip anywhere I could. Oh boy it felt good to finally win a race at the local Waitakere BMX club night!
After 5 years of racing BMX but also doing mountain biking just for fun I decided to use my BMX skills I have picked up and incorporate them within mountain bike racing. At this point in time we just moved down to Cambridge and Rotorua’s MTB scene was ever so closer. As my weekends were now free from BMX I spent them either at Rotorua or at the local MTB park Te Miro. I seemed to thrive at technical terrain thanks to BMX however my fitness department seemed to be lacking as I was only use to a 40 second sprint not a 6-minute enduro MTB stage. This meant I am back to the drawing boards! I spent a lot of time fixing this on the road bike and at the incredable Cambridge velodrome, I am now pretty happy with where I am but still tonnes of improvement needed.