Shropshire; Not exactly somewhere you’d associate with action sports, danger and speed, but growing up in a sleepy rural part of the world does exactly the opposite for those with the right natural wiring. Nestled amongst rolling wooded hillsides, the rise of one of the UK’s biggest hotspots for talented DH riders is only partly due to the geography…

Sometimes, all it takes is a spark and before you know it, local riders are making names for themselves farther afield and what was once somewhere relatively unknown, is now firmly on the map. Such things always start with a small group of influential riders and during the late 90’s and early 00’s, there was a group of riders from these rolling English hills that would come to define British mountain biking. One of these upstarts, was Neil ‘Donny’ Donoghue.

Smooth, stylish and fast are three things that usually spring to mind when you think of Neil, but there is far more to this Shropshire lad than skills on a bike. After a surprise departure from World Cup downhill competition in 2009, Neil’s focus moved towards mountain biking’s newest flavor: Gravity Enduro.

Being one of the most stylish riders on the circuit hasn’t changed, only now its a 150mm travel bike that he’s getting sideways and winning on too! Donny has become one of enduro’s rising stars, whether he knows it or not and 2013, well, it looks set to be a big year for both enduro and for the Don…

Words: Sandy Plenty | Photography: Laurence Crossman-Emms

So, who got you into mountain bikes and how old were you when you first started racing?

My school mates really – I remember saving up for a bike, wasn’t sure whether or not to get a BMX or a mountain bike and my mate Mark Lewis talked me into getting a really old cheap Kona that was already 5 years old when I got it. Second time out on it, up Eastridge, was when I met you there, and that was 2 weeks before National Champs. I then entered the race.

I remember we used to ride loads at Eastridge circa ‘95/96 – what was you first proper bike after the Kona hardtail?

The Kona was pretty ratty to be fair – I bought some cheap cross country forks for it, some Marzocchi XCR forks that had about an inch of travel and I blew them up every few weeks jumping down sets of 10 stairs around town.

After the riding came the racing, who was your first sponsor?  I heard he was some kind of an operator? Ha ha!

Ha ha, yeah, well it was you and your dad that hooked me up first of all at Longmynd Cycles – I was on a Kona Mano-Mano with Bombers. Then after I cracked that, I had a Giant ATX 990 with the Goldtec linkages, which gave you loads more travel but a really steep head angle. Then a couple of Muddy Fox’s, one of which I won the junior national champs on in 1999. Hope hydraulic discs, 6 inch Boxxers, the real deal!

Growing up in the heart of Shropshire, one of the UK’s MTB hotspots, can’t be bad for an aspiring young racer – do you feel this helped carve your riding career?

Yeah I suppose so, at the time it just seemed normal. There was always a good group of riders around that were racing all the time. People like Andrew Titley, Stu Hughes and Matt Farmer, all rode Elite at that time. I just rode for fun back then, but those guys were pushing it on and we had some really good places to ride.

Who did you really look up to in the old days? Obviously Steve was key to your racing, but who else?

Yeah definitely Steve, Will Longden and Warner and also the big American guys like Tomac, Mike King, Myles Rockwell and then Palmer. They seemed like rock stars to me! I remember my first year racing world cups and I managed to qualify in the top 20 at Leysin. I must have been 18 and a proper skinny kid, and Mike King was starting behind me… His calves must have been bigger than my thighs and I was so nervous. I guess he was kind of coming to the end of his career but it felt pretty big time to be up there racing with those guys. Other than MTB I was big into BMX and looked up to those guys probably more than Mountain Bikers. I used to ride my BMX all week at the trails and then MTB at the weekends. Brian Foster and those guys were my real heroes. I had a VHS called ‘Soil’ which was filmed mostly at Sheep Hills and I used to watch that thing every day. I can still remember all the sections and the songs…

So tell me about the race that changed everything for you, was it Eastridge National Champs 1999?

Well by that time I had been hooked up by Jerry Dyer and rode for his magazine ‘Grip’ for about a month before the mag went tits up. He was really good to me – I once drove over to the Worcester office in my beat up old bronze Nissan Micra and filled it to the brim with kit. Bikes, a Troy Lee Daytona helmet, Nixon watches, everything! He proper helped me out back at that time. The mag eventually went under and soon after that it was the National Champs, which I won. He mentioned me to Steve because that was just before he was about to launch Royal. I met Steve after the race and he invited Rich Barlow and myself up to stay at his house and ride trails. It was a right laugh and we all got on well and that was the start of riding for Royal. That first year on Royal I started racing World Cups and Steve would introduce me to all the big sponsors and gave me loads of advice on racing.

I used to go to Mid Shropshire Wheeler circuit training with you and Barlow, I remember nick-naming you the ‘GoFast kids’ cos you had converted 100mm stemmed XC bikes with Club Roost ‘Go Fast’ Bars – what ever happened to Rich Barlow?

He is still around in Shrewsbury, I see him occasionally in the pub. He rides BMX these days with a crew of guys who have some amazing trails.

While on the subject, it’s kind of crazy in a round about way that you are back where you started, working with Steve and riding in Royal gear again. 2012 was a great year for you. How did the SPS deal come about?

It’s nice to be on Royal after a 10-year break. Steve has his ‘Steve Peat Syndicate’ and is keen to promote that, so it just fitted really well with me. I still get on really well with Steve and Royal – I ride a Santa Cruz and it just seems to work for me. I had a good year racing the Gravity Enduros winning the overall.

Okay, lets talk a little about racing over the years. Pre ’09, you were on the Bike Radar/MBUK team for a few years, which I’ve heard ended rather abruptly. Do you think this marked a shift from racing as an important marketing tool, not just for MBUK, but for magazines in general?

I’m not sure on that one; I sort of left myself open to that one, maybe being a little naive? Everything was looking like the MBUK team was going to carry on in 09 with a new team member because Marc had gone to GT. I was happy there so I didn’t look for a back up plan. I had a good year in 09 with a 12th place at the last world cup and I had won the last national. Then in October/ November I got the news that the team was not going to happen and it left me behind the ball a bit and struggling to get a good deal. I don’t blame that at all on MBUK, it was just business and they had a team for something like 18years before that, so they deserve a lot of credit for that. I took what I could and rode for a team I didn’t really want to and got screwed big time! I didn’t get a penny out of him and I was flying all over the world racing world cups. My heart wasn’t in it any more and I just called it quits.

So, tell me about the joker that ran the ‘4Mountains/Zumbi’ team. He left you and a few others high and dry. I remember you telling me about it and just wanting to hunt the guy down! Just what exactly went down?

Pretty much that. He promised a lot, seemed to have the backing but nothing happened. I remember being really pissed off about it at the time, but it is all water under the bridge now… There are plenty of people who have not been paid by sponsors over the years. In fact the whole UCI Rocky Roads thing seems like a very similar sort of deal.

If things hadn’t happened in the way that they did, would you still be on the Downhill circuit, or was this a blessing in disguise? A Chance for you to concentrate on other things?

That’s a hard one to answer – at the time I felt like I was at my prime, riding well, but downhill is a fickle game and you can be smoking it one week and laying on the sofa injured the next week. I guess I might have done a couple more years if all things had gone well, but it is a young mans game and you need a lot of support to be at the top of it. It did give me some other focus in my life when I packed in racing full time, and I wouldn’t say I regretted it.

You’ve become quite the entrepreneur since leaving full time racing and with more than one successful business on the go. Is this something that was always there, burning inside, or did the coaching direction stem from being a pro rider?

Well I don’t know about that. For me, it was doing anything to avoid having a proper job. I sometime used to labour for mates over winter on building jobs, which was good for a bit of cash, but also a great reminder of how lucky I was to be able to ride for a living in summer. So when racing finished I was looking for a job where I could use my experience and avoid real work! Coaching was a perfect transition and I enjoy doing it.

You’ve raced a few DH nationals over the last two years and had some good results, and although you’re the first to say “don’t call it a comeback”, will you be back on the downhill bike in 2013?

I don’t think so to be honest, I have a lot of races coming up with the new World Enduro Series, so I think I will be sticking to that – I still ride a fair bit of DH stuff, but just on the Nomad these days.

Will you be back on Santa Cruz in 2013? What’s your plan for the forthcoming race season?

After some great offers, I’m really happy to say I’ll be sticking with Santa Cruz, Royal, Renthal, Hope, FiveTen & Continental, and representing the Steve Peat Syndicate.

Your well known for having style on a bike and I can remember reading an interview with Sam Hill a few years ago now, but he mentioned you as someone to watch. I always smile when I see you doing your signature inverted one footed table, or drifting a flat turn feet up. Would you have given up all that natural style for World Cup podiums? Or keep it how it was?

Ha, no I would trade all that for a world cup podium definitely. Racing DH is still where it’s. There is nothing better. For me, enduro is fun and it’s easy for me to transition into, but DH is the coolest sport ever. Style wise, I think it all came from being influenced by BMX and riding trails all day everyday from about 14 to 17.

I remember getting the news that you qualified 6th at the Worlds in Les Gets, the highest placed qualifier on flat pedals if I’m not mistaken? What happened in the Finals?

Well at every World Champs I’ve ever been to I seem to get a little too excited, but at that one, it didn’t feel like that – I felt like I was riding really good and felt fast. It was the most stupid crash – I just washed the front wheel on an off-cambered section. I remembered watching it a few years after and was still so gutted – I ended up overlooked due to my crash (rightly so), but even with a crash I was only 10 seconds off Fabien’s winning time and I still felt happy that I was riding better than I had ever had.

Kind of off topic here, but do you think racing on flat pedals is dead? I know you use clips on the Enduro bike – is this a must?

Yeah definitely for enduro, you wouldn’t get anywhere on flats. Downhill, I don’t know. Its such a hard decision to make – I have been racing with clips for 3 years now – maybe if I had started out on them, things would be different? Hard to say really… At the time I rode dirt jumps and raced downhill and felt good on flats. But you do suffer on pedaling – at the time I don’t think I could have charged as hard on clips though.

Another Donoghue trait was cut down bars! You cut you bars down to what, 620? What width bars do you run now?

It was the dirt jump thing at the time to have narrow bars, so I felt like all my bikes should be fairly similar. Looking back it did look ridiculous, on the other side I think the massively wide bars are another trend that people have cottoned onto. When your bars are wider than moto bars, its not going to help you! I now run 720mm bars on all my bikes.

Talking of tech, what are your thoughts with regards to the whole wheel issue?

Initially I hated it, I wrote 29ers off as an old mans bike. They have obvious advantages and I am looking forward to getting one and having a proper go on one – I can see the Tall Boy as a mega bike and I’m definitely warming to the bigger wheel sizes…

Okay, enduro racing. This is something you’ve excelled in and obviously something you’ll be involved with as the discipline grows and develops. Where do you see enduro going and where would you like to see it go?

I think its definitely going to mature a lot, for me there is a lot of hit and miss with enduro at the moment. Some I love, some I hate, but for me it all comes down to the venue and the trails. I don’t want to pedal my guts out up a fire road just to link a few sections – I’d rather ride shorter sections if we have to and with more focus on the descents. I’d like to see it go that way, but I realise most people would like to see a bit of everything. Maybe gravity enduro will split in the future into a pure gravity race, focused on 5 mini downhill tracks as well as a traditional style enduro?

Have you had any frustrations with timing over the past few years? I remember the early Kona Mash-Up races had their problems?

Yeah that’s another one that can be a little hit and miss – it’s a shame, but the timing can mess up a race. It makes or breaks an event. Hopefully it will get ironed out, because it is the fundamental part of racing. There should be no excuses.

Following twitter, I have picked up that maybe this year some cheating has been going on from other riders in the UK? How does that make you feel?

There was one event this year, and it probably sounds like sour grapes because I had done crap – anyway, I crashed on the first stage, so my race was over, but there was some blatant course cutting from some big named guys who I actually really respect and it really soured the racing for me. I almost gave up racing there and then. I thought if these guys could pick lines through bushes, just because there was a bit of tape missing… that’s not really in the spirit of racing for me. If there was a bit of tape missing at a downhill race, you wouldn’t see people going straight through because they would feel ashamed. Taking tight lines is racing but cutting 100m of track isn’t.

Will the UCI’s decision to not sanction a world series, hold enduro back and does it need an international series?

I think it needs an international series, but whether or not the UCI needs to be involved I don’t know? It could be quite healthy to not have them involved and see it grow organically. The world has gone Enduro mad recently and I think it needs to calm down a bit and the cream will rise to the top – a good structure of local, national and world races should sort itself out.

Enduro Bikes: Does such a thing, as the ‘ideal race bike’ exists, especially with the variety of differing tracks? Would you ever take two bikes to a race and ride the one best suited to the track and conditions?

I took two bikes this year, but ended up racing my TRc all year with 125mm on the back. I had the carbon Nomad with me, but chose the TRc for last years racing. I’d rather a lighter, faster bike and make myself work harder on the technical stuff rather than be “over biked” on the pedally sections. I guess I’m a little old school – I won the series on a 125mm travel bike with inner tubes, where a lot of magazines are saying a 29er tubeless is the future, – I guess its horses for courses, where one bike will excel, another will suffer…

So last but not least, give us few names that helped along the way from the start…

Yeah, I guess in the early days it was Longmynd Cycles, yourself Sandy. There have been loads of sponsors and friends really that have helped me keep riding and made riding fun, that’s why I have done it for so long. And also the support of my parents early on and nowadays from my fiancé Leanne, who understands I need ride a lot. Also Jerry Dyer, Nick Bayliss, Steve Peat, Dave Evans, Will Longden, Dickon Hepworth, Rob Roskopp, Chris Porter and Ian Collins – thanks guys!

I would like to take this opportunity as a friend and on behalf of Factory Jackson, to wish you luck for the next several years of successful racing ahead!

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