Name: Michael Haines

Occupation: Grad Student

Quiver: Specialized Stumpjumper full squish, Gary Fischer Paragon hardtail

Favorite Trail: Womble

Favorite Race: Ouachita challenge

Best Finish: 3 first place finishes in team events (but only when my dad is on my team): Rapture in Misery 12 hour, Sunflower 12 hour adventure race, Lake Perry Dusk til Dawn adventure race.

Favorite Riding Food: Cytomax, HEED, Perpetuem, Clif bars

What are your riding goals? Show up to more events, finish them all, and have a lot of fun

Why do you ride? Because it's really fun, and the fun is self-perpetuating: The more you ride, the better you get, the better you get, the faster you go, the faster you go, the more fun you have, the more fun you have, the more you ride...

What advice would you give to a beginner rider? Go ride a lot of trails! If you can't ride over an obstacle, don't get discouraged, everyone has to push their bike sometimes. Go back and practice the hard parts that you can almost make it through, you'll figure them out eventually.

Worst Wipeout: When I first got my stumpjumper, I was riding it really really fast in a parking lot in the rain and decided to try to bunnyhop a parking curb at a sharp angle. As it turns out, having a new full suspension bike does exempt you from crashing when you do stupid things, and I ended up rolling through the grass for about fifteen feet and spraining my wrist pretty bad. I couldn't drive my car for several days (not shift, anyway), but I also learned to take on slippery obstacles at a nice square angle.