How To Become A Professional Mountain Biker With Blake Samson

– Welcome back you beautiful people. Do you know I get asked this
question a hell of a lot. And that is, how do you become pro? How do you do the thing
you love the most as a job? Well, you know what,
today’s your lucky day. I am going to give you an outline, a blueprint as such, on how I become pro. Follow me. (upbeat music) The earlier you start riding bikes, the better you’re going to
get if you stick with it. Simple, but it helps. The simplest way to explain this just riding loads. The more you ride, the more you learn. And in effect, the better you get. Progression is the name of the game. Concentrate on what you what. If it’s dirt jumping, downhill, XC, enduro, road cycling, anything. But the main thing is you’re having fun in what you’re doing. ‘Cause that’s going to
fill you and your career. (upbeat music) (brakes screeching) So you’re running like, so much and you want to get to the next stage. How are you going to do that? How are you going to progress your skills? I’ll show you how. Getting noticed is always
good to showcase your skills. Getting yourself out there on social media filming a few cool video
clips, putting them together, to make a rad edit would
always be a good idea. By this point, you’re probably thinking, man this is such hard work. Why in the hell do I
have to keep doing this? Yes, yes, yes, it is going to be hard, like I said in the beginning, you want a good foundation
to build your career. Building your reputation and
getting yourself out there, will help you get noticed
in the cycling world, which in favor will draw
attention to bike brands and you’ll be on their
radar, which is a good thing. Again, this is just you
having fun on your bike. (brakes screeching) All right, when it
comes to filming a video for social media, you
don’t have to go out there and hire a big camera to film a video. All you need to do, is
film it on one of these. This, you carry with you all the time. And the camera quality on
now a day phones are insane. You can get a lot out of it. I know a few UK athletes, and athletes abroad wherever you are, have made a career just
by getting their friends to film them on their mobile phone, quickly edit together, check it on social media. gets lots of views, everything like that, and start to get noticed that way. That’s if you don’t like contests, you become a social media star. (upbeat music) Competition time. If you’re competitive
and entering a few events to get results, will help
you climb that career ladder to become a pro. Now, there are two ways
that you can do this. And that is find out what local
events you have in your area and enter them. Small events are a great
way to gain experience before you hit up the
biggest ones out there. Hell, if I want to get
sponsored and get my free bike, I need to enter a pro. So I entered my first competition and I was the underdog
and I came up on top. I got third place behind
Sam Pilgrim at the time and basically the next time
I got to the next event, I picked up my first sponsorship. But, that’s in dirt jumping. When it comes to cross
country or road cycling or anywhere else, you have
to go through the categories to get points to get to
where you need to be. Hell, that’s how Neil did it. He had to work his way
up through the categories to get points to get to category one, to become a professional. With everything braced,
(cheering) filmed, and you’ve got the results, you’ll find a few brands
knocking at your door with a few deals in their hand. Just remember, when you
sign on that dotted line, yes you, it’s just the beginning. (upbeat music) Just because you got a deal, you can’t sit back and relax. You got to think twice. (upbeat music) You got to keep doing it. Yes, that’s you I’m talking to with your feet up on the desk. Get out of there! (bicycle chain moving) (brakes screeching) But you can’t live just on free products. There’s a number of other steps within the process for
you to get to the top. And once this is all
going on, you’re learning. You’re learning marketing,
sales, people skills, planning, filming, all of that’s going on, and you didn’t even know it. And just because you just want to have fun on your bike at the end of the day. But it does come with a little hardship. At the start you might just
be getting product only, which is great, and it’s
a big help when it comes to breaking a few parts on your bike. You can replace them with free ones, without digging into your own
pocket and paying for them. But, all of this is not free. It has to come out of someone’s pocket at the end of the day. You got to make sure you got
to keep your sponsors happy because you got to make sure that you’re a good investment for them. So keep on doing what you’re doing. At the end of the day, you’re there because you love it. You’re in the right frame of mind. You are passionate and you
want to embrace those emotions to push forward to get
what you want to achieve at the end of the day. And that is, making your
goal mountain biking or whatever sport you’re in. Now it brings me back again to having fun on your bike. You’re always having fun. But I’m not going to lie. I’m not going to lie. It’s a job at the end of the day and sometimes in that job, there’s some bits in there you hate and you do not want to do. Some days you don’t even
want to get on your bike. But still, a rest day, whatever,
you get back on your bike and you still love what you do. Okay, with all that said, it
sounds like it’s hard work and yes it is hard work, but hard work does pay off. Just think of yourself
as a company in itself. Your name is your company. You want to build that
company to be successful. And that’s the same
thing as being sponsored and getting sponsored and being pro. It comes with a lot of hard work. For me, I really wanted
to get a free bike. So I thought, hell, I
need to go do a contest. So I did a contest, I
came up on top knowing that my skills were pretty good, I did crash a lot at the time, but it does pay off when it comes to it. And then I moved through the ranks. I got in FMB, I got to the top of FMB, not to number one, but I got to a point where I felt comfortable
where I got noticed so other companies could see me and I could start to promote the companies that I rode for. That’s the thing, you get free stuff but it does not come free. You have to work for it. You have to promote the
products you actually ride for. And that’s where all that
hard work comes from. And it’s never ending. You don’t have a day off. You kind of do. You do have a day off or two. But that’s it. I moved all the way and then I started getting
into the social media. I started getting into the media world where I started working with a number of great film makers out there. Good friends of mine,
very good friends today and I started working with them, started making good video content and then I started moving into that. I started making it myself. I started filming myself. Hell, I even started my own channel. And then, I came to GMBN
where I used all those skills I learned throughout the years and I brought them here, and now I work with some great people and I still make it my job. And I’m traveling the world,
but it doesn’t come easy. It’s super hard work. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed this video. Hopefully this has given
you a little bit more of an understanding, a
little blueprint as such, on how to become pro or
how it is to be a pro and how hard it is. It does look like we’re living the life. It is, a little bit. But it comes with hard work. If you want to stick around and you want to see a
day in the life of a pro, just click over here. And if you want to see
some more rad content, don’t forget to hit
the globe to subscribe, ’cause you’re missing on some rad stuff. Give us a thumbs up like if you feel like you could become pro.