INTERVIEW

Dean Hersey chats to the ball of energy that is Claudio Caluori.

WORDS DEAN HERSEY

Credit: Dan Griffiths 82

PHOTOGRAPHY CREDITED

A pumptrack in Bochletsane, Lesotho.

Credit: Tyrone Bradley

You don’t have to dig too far into the colossal internet mountain of videos to have come across Claudio Caluori, or at least his voice. Arguably, he’s most famous for his Red Bull TV Mountain Bike World Cup racing commentary and his POV course previews featuring his impressive running commentary and screams of terror mid-run. Those among us who have attempted to ride (let alone race) down a modern World Cup downhill track will know that surviving is the highest priority for us mere mortals. So it was all the more impressive to hear Claudio talk through each and every feature while keeping up with World Cup racers in front of him. He can clearly ride a bike. Before his renowned work in front of the camera, Claudio had started racing bikes when he was 16, competing at cross-country before tackling downhill events in Switzerland. With seven national downhill titles, he broke onto the international downhill scene and scored an impressive fourth place at the iconic Mont-Sainte-Anne Downhill World Cup in 2002.

However, it’s not his past accolades, but the whispers of what he is doing now that have caught my attention. Catching him in-between his many ventures, family life, and when he wasn’t on site in an excavator, proved a tad tricky. Eventually I managed to grab some of his precious time to talk about his trail building company, Velosolutions, and its sibling not-for-profit Pump for Peace programme, which aims to bring the joy and benefits of pump tracks to a more diverse audience. I wanted to find out why he has chosen to dedicate his time to these projects, and gain some insight into the challenges that they face and a snippet of his ideas for the future.

Finishing the race

I first wanted to know how Claudio transitioned from bike racer to where he is today, and what factors might have affected the difficult decision to stop racing bikes. He explained that it was a gradual transition. “It wasn’t exactly a clean cut from quitting racing to becoming a team manager and a businessman. If you want to call me a businessman?” he chuckles.

Alongside two friends he started Velosolutions back in 2004 while he was still a full-on pro racer, but they really counted on Claudio to quit racing. So things stalled for a few years until his racing career had run its course at the end of the 2007 season. “That decision came after I maxed everything out I could in my racing career. I shared the same trainer as Greg Minnaar, took on a nutritionist and mental coach. I lived that programme for the whole year, every minute. But after all that effort I didn’t progress any further, so I figured it was time to find something new.”