Moving up the ranks: Luke Meier-Smith

If you were wondering if you can get earSHOTS bluetooth headphones on underneath a full face mountain biking helmet, you can, says Luke Meier-Smith, with a sly laugh.

He’s about to step onto a plane and into his first year as an elite rider in the upcoming Mountain Biking World Cup season, and through his sports headphones he’s been listening to rap and thrashing his motivation playlist.

The volume cranks up and so is the competition for the Australian rider who says he is looking forward to testing himself out at this next level.

“Being in elite now it is going to be interesting to see how I go.There are a lot more fast guys who are at a really high level and a lot more riders than in junior. I’ll give it my best shot and I’m super excited.” He’s winging his way to Europe to jump on board his second competitive season with German team, Propain Factory Racing. His bikes, dad and brother are going with him - Remy Meier-Smith is following in his older siblings bike tracks and will be competing in his first junior season.

“It will be cool to have my brother along. We are definitely competitive with each other, he rides behind me a lot so he’s pretty quick at the moment.”

Luke started to get noticed on the international mountain biking circuit in 2019. After some strong national placings he rounded out the year by competing in his first world cup as a junior. He came out strong, finishing second in the last round in Snow Shoe, USA and was in the top 10 for all his other races. It got him onto the downhill German team, something he says has been a dream come true.

“It’s always been the thing I have been working towards to compete overseas and make a career out of racing professionally.”

Luke lives on his family’s avocado farm in New South Wales where he has plenty of hills to train on. The family have built a training track which Luke and Remy spend a lot of time on, there’s a gym at home which is another haunt and surfing adds in a bit of cross-training.

“I do gym three times a week and I do a ‘Fit for Racing’ programme. Pre-season I’ll do a few longer rides and then coming up to season I ramp it up on the downhill. I also do a bit of sprint training. Jason English helps me with my training and he doesn’t make it easy for me which is what I need.”

earSHOTS bluetooth headphones were a great answer to having music on board when Luke was finding that conventional headphones weren’t up to scratch for the type of training he puts in.

“They have been awesome, the best earbuds for riding. They stay in which is important right? I wear them in the gym and on the bike, mainly for enduro.”

Luke will be away for the next three months doing what he loves - competing, experiencing new countries and different terrains, “it’s just so awesome riding with your mates, going fast and pushing your limits. I’d rather that than being a normal person working nine to five. I just want to ride my bike and I love pushing myself, that’s the drive.”