Meet The Team

Introducing the motley crew responsible for keeping the wheels turning here at Stif! From helping you with your purchase decisions, to social media and web, to getting your shiny new gear out & on its way to you, we each have our specialities and character quirks.

One thing that we all have in common however, is that we all ride mountain bikes, so no matter which of us you speak to, you can be rest assured that we share your passion for our sport and we all practice what we preach!

Sales Team

Gav

We might be biased, but we’re pretty sure if there was a competition for the worlds nicest person, Gav and his smile would win it! A coffee connoisseur who’s quickly become known for his Tumblr worthy latte art, but after we found him cutting coffee beans in half to inspect their quality, we think it might be an obsession…. Gav has joined the sales team here in Summerbridge and will be on hand with his wealth of experience to help you with your next MTB related purchase.

Current Rides: Santa Cruz Hightower "For the big stuff" | Highball "Commuting and faster fun"

Workshop Team

Matt Crewther

If you follow us on Instagram, or regularly attend pretty much any Enduro in the country you’ll be no stranger to Matt’s face, or his insane riding ability. Whipper-snapper Matt has been on the Stif race team for a while now and is friends with many of the Stif crew so it’s awesome to welcome him into a full-time workshop role here in Summerbridge. When not riding or digging obnoxiously steep rut tracks, Matt can be found tinkering with his rather cool Mazda MX5.

Current Rides: Santa Cruz Stigmata | Santa Cruz Hightower | 5010

Warehouse Crew

Tom ‘Turbo’ Dodsworth

We drafted Tom over from planet Endor to become our mail-order/warehouse manager (although we’ve since heard that the other Ewoks want him back), and have found him to be extremely capable. A challenger to Sasquatch Atkinson in the hairy stakes, Turbo loves mountain biking, despite the risk of his fur getting caught in the chain. He’s done his time as a seasonaire in Whistler and has genuine passion for the lovely things that we send out to you customers via his department.
Has exhausted the internet’s supply of cat memes. Recently succeeded in baking a cake that had 11,000 calories in it, which reduced us to shaking, sugar-crazed wrecks after we ate it all.

Current Rides: Santa Cruz Hightower | Highball grocery/pub machine | Santa Cruz Heckler

Ben Small

Bio Incoming...

Current Rides: Santa Cruz Bronson

Behind The Scenes

Sammy ‘literally broken’ Smithson

The general manager, and easily the most adept among the staff at finding elaborate ways to hurt himself. Sammy is an efficient communicator, namely due to being exceedingly loud – complimentary in-store ear defenders can be issued to visitors on request. Considering his life-long experience of bikes, it’s possibly a bit ironic that he should be kept away from anything with wheels on it in the interest of his own health and safety. Keeps gamely coming back for more though! Sammy is the driving force when it comes to choosing which shiny things we should stock, and also the main man behind our lovely Squatch bikes (and their predecessor Morfs). Says ‘literally’ a lot.

Current Rides: Santa Cruz Bullit | Skateboard

Si ‘Mr broken things’ White

Dapper Si has now branched out into our product buying arm, after some years heading up Warranty in-house – he’s responsible for choosing many of the lovely items you’ll see in store and gracing the pages of our website, whilst looking damn sharp all the while. His orderly mind comes in useful for retaining vast amounts of product knowledge (he’s also heading up our in-house product training these days) and cataloguing his truly colossal collection of sneakers.
Si loves extraordinarily repetitive dance music, so we’ve given him his own office where none of the rest of us can hear it.

Current Rides: Santa Cruz Hightower | Dusty old 26" Trials bike

Pete ‘Neat Pickles’ Nicholls

Master of the dark arts of the ‘pokey board’ (web nerd), Pete is our in-house techie and can take much of the credit for our latest shiny website. Not content with this somewhat behind-the-scenes role, Pete also graces our digital pages as a model for much of the ride/casualwear that we sell – he’s much cheaper than a professional model, and slightly less of a diva.
Pete likes riding ‘little bikes’ at skate parks and jump trails, but in the midst of all the madness of 2020 found himself buying a Stigmata and is now a secret part-time curly-bar enthusiast. Part-time scraper-up of former colleague Rob Harvey when he breaks himself.

Current Rides: Santa Cruz Bronson | Cervélo Caledonia-5 | Santa Cruz Stigmata | The Rise Partymaster

DJ Dave Robinson

Bio Incoming...

Current Rides: Santa Cruz Nomad | Santa Cruz Heckler

Down South! Meet our new Bristol Team

Isaac Edmunds

Isaac is the equally smiley and cheery ‘bro’ to his and Elliot’s ‘mance’. Isaac enjoys pick-up trucks, riding his bike and smiling. As part of the sales team you can be assured that whatever you’re looking at, Isaac contains the knowledge. Having recently experienced his first Yorkshire pudding this could be the perfect in-store bribery tool, he’s a big fan!

Current Ride: Santa Cruz Nomad | DJ machine

Dan

Resident Cider aficionado Dan is the latest addition to our Bristolian wolf pack. He’s joining us after a 2 year stint cruising through Whistler’s world class jump lines, but even after this lengthy sabbatical his southern accent remains strong (think Hot Fuzz esque!), as such we’re thinking about employing a translator for all essential communications with northern Stif staffers. Handy on a bike Dan is just as happy on a technical trail ride as he is at an jibby jump session, so you can be assured his advice will have a positive effect on your trail time.

Current Ride: Santa Cruz Bronson | Some weird metal DH rig

Dan Brown

A recent addition to our Bristol crew, action man Dan (Actiondan?) is well catered for in the bike department, even before he came on board. His mighty fleet includes full-suspension bikes, hardtails, dirt jumpers, gravel bike…..the list goes on. He’s worked previously at Bike Park Wales before joining us, so it’s fair to say that he’s bike-mad. Don’t assume he’s a one-trick Welsh pony though! When he’s not riding bikes, fixing bikes or hoarding bikes, Actiondan can be found paddleboarding, climbing, swimming and adventure seeking (we’re assuming not all at the same time, but keeping an open mind as to the limits of the man’s talents). Dan joins our Bristol team in a workshop role, and takes their total number of Dan’s to two – we hear that they are aiming to have an equal ratio of Dans to our northern store’s number of Robs. We are sure he’ll fit in very well!

Current Rides: Santa Cruz Bronson