WITH TotalMTB, Hotlines and Leatt!!!

I first heard about Oscar through Facebook on a post that had been shared many times and so I reached out to the family to see if I could organise one of the surprises for Oscar. His Mum Emmie told me that the thing Oscar most needed was more protection gear as in the future when he’s well enough to go for a ride he’ll need a chest plate, full face helmet but also knee pads, elbow pads and goggles as they were all broken or destroyed during the incident.

With only Emmie knowing I set out to find the stuff for Oscar and having already a great relation with Hotlines who distributes Leatt I asked if they would mind getting involved in the surprise and they swiftly replied and said they’d sort whatever Oscar needed. I told Emmie to put a list together of what he needed from the Leatt website and the size of what he needed.

I sent the list to Hotlines and the following week it had all been sent and delivered to Oscar to open his surprise, no questions asked by Hotlines and exactly what was listed was sent by them, brand new chest protection, full face helmet, knee pads, elbow pads and goggles, absolutely awesome and a credit to the mtb world/industry!!

Oscar’s story and receiving the surprise as written by his Mum Emmie “This is Oscar, my 14 year old son who is mad about mountain biking and one very brave boy. On the evening of Monday 28th November ’22, Oscar suffered a cardiac arrest whilst out biking with his club. His breathing stopped & so did his heart.

Oscar is usually so fit & healthy & had no idea he had an underlying heart condition. Oscar’s life was saved by the quick thinking of one incredible individual there that night & also the team effort of everyone at The Cornwall Bicycle Project CIC who was out riding with him.

Luckily in the middle of a very small muddy carpark, they managed to perform CPR & get a defibrillator from the local village very quickly. This ultimately resulted in saving his life, had there not been a defibrillator so close we know that Oscar would not have survived.

Oscar was rushed to Derriford & then on to Bristol Childrens Hospital where he was on life support for a week, nobody knew if or when he would wake up! Luckily he did, he then waited 2 weeks for open heart surgery to fix the issue the Doctor’s thought they had found with his heart. Unfortunately it was more serious than they thought & surgery didn’t go to plan, Oscar was put through double surgery & then back on to life support.

Being such a strong lad mentally & physically he pulled through again & even smashed the record being discharged in only 4 days after open heart surgery to be home on Christmas eve for his step dad’s & little sisters birthday on Christmas day! He is still awaiting his fitness test to see if the surgery has worked for him. This surprise has been so overwhelming for Oscar & myself.

When Oscar first woke up he was devastated to find out that all his biking clothes had been cut off, everything had been thrown away even his shoes! Not only did he have all of his biking clothes cut off that night we also had to sell his bike recently too!

As a mum I was so stressed & upset to think that I would need to replace it all for him, so this Is one less worry for me now. Being off work for 3 months has been hard on us whilst looking after Oscar & trying to process how life-changing this is for our family, I knew I wouldn’t be able to afford to kit him out again too soon but I also didn’t want Oscar to worry about that.

Especially as Oscar was chosen for TCBP CIC Race Team a week before he collapsed, knowing that if he is able to ride again he has been told that he would need to wear a chest plate forever and a full face helmet plus all the gear he had cut off him. He was way more upset about this & thinking I would need to replace it all for him than finding out that he had been brought back to life!

This surprise has truly helped Oscar & us massively, it is so hard to put into words what this really means to us as a family. It’s been so emotional for us all, we can’t thank you all enough. Oscar would have honestly just loved a pair of socks, but to see him open up all of this was such a shock to us all… yes I cried again!

Ryan & all of you at TotalMTB are truly amazing, thank you so so much from the bottom of all our hearts & Oscars

We are so grateful that Oscar will eventually make a full recovery and it’s all because of a little machine. We now want to help get more defibrillators in to the local community. Cornwall is made up of such rural areas, that in some circumstances, ambulances would not be able to reach a patient in time, so these machines are so vital here.”

Oscar and his family are raising money to put more defibrillators around their local area and you can donate here https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/oscars-defib?fbclid=IwAR2fe8sZmaaa3Ac3X8vxamDDisnV5fPH7k301tFuRYFzeWLy_KJGbr5gits

(In the photos you can see Oscar after his awful incident, Oscar with the fantastic gentleman who helped save his life at the scene and Oscar and all his new gear).

WITH TotalMTB, Hiplok, Enties, Leighton Vans, Rehook, Vyper and more!!!

The TotalMTB team went to Sherwood Pines to surprise people and give out 40+ goodie bags and other mtb gear ALL FOR FREE worth £1,000s!!

You can watch the video here…..

WITH TotalMTB, Little Rippers, MBUK, Rehook, Ti-GO Bikes, Leighton Vans, Nutexa Frictions and more!!!

As it’s been a tough year for a lot of families in the UK due to rising bills and especially at Christmas when it should be a happy and festive time of year.

I wanted to surprise a group of youngsters with goodie bags to spread some Christmas cheer.

I got in touch with Sean from the Little Rippers MTB group and told him what I’d like to do and I’d like to sort it for their annual Christmas group ride.

He immediately said yes and loved the idea so it was just a case of contacting brands, ordering supplies and organising as good a goodie as we could.

Anyone who knows me would know I always want to do an idea as good as I can, I don’t want things just ok, I want to make it awesome.

Thankfully some awesome brands responded to the call with some awesome stuff for the goodie bags:
TotalMTB – Lego motorbike toy, bubbles, Christmas cards
MBUK – neck tube, tyre lever
Rehook – rehook tool
Ti-GO Bikes – rear mudguard
Leighton Vans – notepad
Nutexa Frictions – haribo

And of course plenty of stickers from the brands mentioned before as well as Prevelo Bikes and PinnedTV.

As you can see from the following photos the goodie bags went down really well.

Kids in the photos:
@_eco_mumma_
@thegillsbikeadventures
@serenscout
@little_ripper_josh
@little.rocket
@serenscout

Kids involved in the ride:
@lewiscraik
@_oakley_mila_riders
@thegillsbikeadventures
@thegills2015
@_eco_mumma_
@donnellynickie
@serenscout
@little.rocket
@little_ripper_josh
@roo.shredz
@nealdb

I first came across Phoenix through the TrailRippers who’d share one of his videos during early recovery on their story.

More about Phoenix and his illness, his Dad said……

“Phoenix had to attend hospital last November after complaining about his arm aching, nine hours after attending the staff turned round to inform us they thought he had bone cancer, this was then confirmed after a biopsy at Birmingham Children’s Hospital.

He had a super rare bone cancer called Ewings sarcoma only 200 cases worldwide a year and not normally in his age group and normally find in teenagers he then started his chemo treatment on starlight ward in Bristol Children’s Hospital the week before Christmas.

The chemo throughout this process lasted six months has made him really poorly but he stayed positive and brave throughout.

He then attended Birmingham Children’s Hospital on the 12th of May his sixth birthday and had life-saving surgery where they cut a hole of his bone and the cancer out on his right arm and grafted his leg bone in to replace it the surgery is never been done on someone so young in Britain before

He has carried on with his chemo since surgery and is wheelchair-bound at the moment.

He has one more treatment to go on the week of the 27th where he will get to ring the bell and we hope to be told he is in remission there is a 30% chance of his cancer coming back.

Ewing sarcoma sufferers nearly always go on to have leukaemia in later life but as a family we are going to go getting better and try and get him back to full health and live life to the fullest.

The family has been to hell and back with his journey in Phoenix is our hero, he has taken everything he’s been put through with a smile on his face with bravery in his heart

The support the family has received especially Phoenix and Logan on the race downhill scene from other parents and the biking community in general and of course yourselves (TotalMTB).

It is made this horrendous journey so much better the love kindness and positivity shown to us by the cycling and biking community amazing what a fantastic bunch of people on something so we are so glad off and so appreciative of.

And I just wanted to mention how amazing Ina and the trail rippers have been towards the family what an amazing bunch of people constant support and love towards us”

I got in touch with Ina (the TrailRippers Mum), and asked her to see if there’s anything TotalMTB can do for Phoenix as part of our #TotalSurprise project.

She couldn’t think of anything but mentioned what TotalMTB was trying to do for Phoenix to his parents.

When the time was right during his recovery his Dad got in touch with TotalMTB as he’d thought of what we could do for Phoenix and that he’s love.

Their thought was to have a full face helmet which was fully custom design and painted just for Phoenix and as a bonus if they could organise to present the helmet to Phoenix at the 2022 Malverns Classic with one of his favourite riders.

So the #TotalSurprise and my challenge had been laid down, due to how many people were involved and donating product and time for this it was the biggest and toughest #TotalSurprise so far but I was determined to sort it for Phoenix.

Firstly I tried to sort the custom design and paint work for the full face helmet, through social media I already knew who my first port of call was as I’d seen their fantastic work for some of the best and well known riders in the mountain bike world….. Lee Morgan Artworx

Luckily Lee and Steph from Lee Morgan Artworx had already seen and read about Phoenix and what he’s been through and without hesitation they agreed and were more than happy to get involved and donate their time in designing and painting Phoenix his custom painted helmet.

Now I had the custom paint job covered I now needed a full face helmet, I’ve previously worked with Gareth from 661 Protection so I thought I’d email him to see if they could help out with the helmet for our #TotalSurprise

And again without hesitation he said he and 661 Protection would love to help out and so sent a brand new full face helmet for Lee Morgan Artworx to work his magic.

Lee was given a brief by Phoenix’s family and I think it’s fair to say he smashed it!!!! The flames effect, the space effect and how he’s done the 661 logo, all so impressive!!

Now we just needed to finish off the surprise by organising with Malverns Classic and one of his favourite riders to present the helmet during the event.

After discussing things with Oliver Paton we worked out that Ben Deakin would be the perfect fit, Deaks is one of Phoenix’s favourite bikers, we know he’s attending the event and he’s and ambassador for 661.

So during the event everyone involved in the surprise met at the 661 stand so Phoenix could be presented with his new custom painted full face helmet.

I told a good friend of TotalMTB about our TotalSurprise project, what it’s about and if someone ever came to their mind that would be a good fit for what we’re doing to let me know.

He told me about a family in Wales who were struggling financially after being hit with rising bills that were already on a low income as a single parent.

The two boys are so passionate about mtb especially downhill mtb and it’s fantastic for their mental and physical health.

The problem was that they especially love to ride at Dyfi Bike Park and do most of their training there but it costs and with the financial situation they now found themselves in they wouldn’t be able to go to Dyfi Bike Park as often if at all and it’s so important not only for training but as a stress release for mental health as well as physical health.

The boys I’ve mentioned are the @TrailRippers (Nathan and Ruben) on Instagram who are very loved and popular in the mtb world.

They both compete at a very high level and it’s fantastic to see.

They have sponsors for clothing, training and equipment but I wanted to make sure they could go to Dyfi Bike Park as often as they wanted not only to train but also for their mental and physical health without their Mum having to worry about the bills.

So TotalMTB has teamed up with Dyfi Bike Park to put some funds towards making sure they can go to the bike park without having to worry about money side of things and have some funds left over for other bits they need when racing and travelling.

It will be fantastic to see Nathan and Ruben develop and progress in the mtb world.

A message from Dan Atherton about the surprise… “It’s awesome to see this support for two really nice lads, Nathan is already starting to put some fast runs together and Reuben won’t be far behind.

Helping fast racers who live locally is important to us so Dyfi Bike Park and TotalMTB have come together to help, support and fund the Trail Rippers.

With the help of Dyfi Bike Park and TotalMTB they will be able to get access to the bike park, uplifts, race entries, travel and more, we’re all excited to see what this year will bring.”

This is definitely the biggest and most dramatic surprise yet!!!

Sally has been helping and supporting me with TotalMTB for years, mainly by running the Twitter chat account @MTBTalk

I knew she was a massive fan of Ben Moore and she was the one who introduced me to Ben last year.

I asked Ben if he could send Sally one of his main race jerseys and he said that wasn’t a problem at all.

Ben needed to come over to the UK to visit his family as well as some other bits and he asked me where Sally lived so not only could she get the jersey but he’d personally drop it off.

We sorted a day and time, I tried to contact her family to make sure she would stay home for when he got there but I couldn’t reach anyone so we just had to hope she was home.

The day before the surprise we found out it was Sally’s birthday and we had no idea, it just made it more special.

Then I saw on social media that she was going shopping but due to the earlyish time Ben was surprising her we hoped she’d still be home.

As Ben was almost at her house he saw a car driving getting closer and driving the other way, he recognised it as Sally’s car so blocked her in so she couldn’t get past and he jumped out to surprise her.

Hollywood film storyline or what!!!! ?

I’m so happy it went well and to plan (sort of).

Thank you again to Sally for all her help and support and to Ben for taking the time to do this surprise ?