Defining the Ineffable with Landon Bloomer
From MTB cross country lycra dude to 'Donny Downhill' to Slag Force
Six years ago I was part of a small group of men who would weekly get together to talk and pray at a church on the outskirts of Pittsburgh. The leader was a young guy who made a name for himself during his teen years as a fearless BMX racer.
He was telling us about this one night before we started, and another guy, a new face to me, piped up. He said something like he also rides bikes and that they should go riding together sometime.
“But I’m not the lycra-wearing type cyclist who rides real fast and worries about tire width. I ride mountain bikes,” he said, chuckling. The statement is lost on the rest of the group. As a mountain biker who started riding on the road, and as someone who owns and wears lycra, I’m intrigued.
“I wear lycra. What’s wrong with tight-fitting clothes during a ride?” He chuckled nervously and hedges, but already I want to be friends with him. Just a few months ago I had bought my first mountain bike for $100 and I was really getting hooked. (It had a cracked fork, hence its dirt-cheapness. Eventually I had it fixed.)
I started asking him questions and our brief moment of bonding sorta awkwardly took over the first half of the small group meeting. After, we exchanged phone numbers and then started making plans to ride in the spring. Weeks later, once the warmer weather came, we met up at his place for a ride through “the slags.” It’s an illegal trail system in Pittsburgh that has been built out over the years and that, at least at that point, only the locals know about.
(It and the surrounding area has since been featured here and there.)
One day, we’re riding and I break my $100 bike crashing into Shit Creek, another one of those local nicknames that only locals know about. Landon, after a quick laugh, pulled me up out of the embankment, told me my bike was trashed and said he’d hike-a-bike my bike back to his friend’s house to grab a spare. He told me to ride his bike to a spot where we’d meet with the spare and then switch.
The dude just loves riding and the camaraderie that comes with it. And he wasn’t about to let a full send into Shit Creek spoil a good time in the saddle … so I thought I’d feature him here.
PROFILE
Landon Bloomer
Age: 37
Family: Wife; Lauren. Kid; Chase. And a new, three-day old baby. (Congrats!)
Occupation: Business owner.
Road or mountain? Mountain. Preferably downhill.
Miscellaneous: Founded Anglr, an app kinda like Strava for fishermen.
What’s your earliest memory of riding bikes?
My earliest memory wasn’t me on a bike. I sat on a car seat on my mom’s bike. It was an ugly white seat sitting on her back wheel.
But one day, I was probably 10 or 11, my sister was 8. We lived at a lake. We were riding down to the beach. The towel got in her front spokes, and she busted her face up on the pavement. that was the first one. first bike at about 11. it was a GT Backwoods. old school cross country style. neightbor was bik MTBer. Canondale Jackyll. thought it was super cool. he showed me trails where grew up. wasnt singletrack. doubtrack, ATV trails. slowly became something to do. ride bikes through woods to our friends’ houses. never considered myself a MTBer growing up. just something we did. fisherman. traveled to fish, took bikes. very much did a thing we did. not a deep passion. explore on bikes in the woods.
How did your love of riding bikes grow as you got older?
It was in college where I got more serious about mountain biking. I went to undergrad school in central PA. There was singletrack out there, but it was still old-school cross country stuff. I rode on the weekends with a couple friends — just did it for fun. But it wasn’t ‘hOlY Sh*t, I f*cKin’ loVe MTB,’ you know.
I went to grad school in Pittsburgh. I didn’t have a bike. I got really depressed and I was living on my own. I knew nobody. My mom suggested I get a bike. She was like, “I mean, you have Frick Park in your back yard. It’s well known place to ride.
I told her, ‘well, I have no money.’ So mom and dad chipped in on a Gary Fisher Paragon, it was one of those bikes that was part of a new wave of newer bikes. It was still a hardtail though. So I went to pick up the bike at Pro Bike in Pittsburgh.
So my mom knew a friend who owned a coffee shop in town. She asked them if they knew anyone to introduce my son to? Ended up being Jesse Seager and he happened to be at ProBikes that same day I picked up the bike. He had actually bought the same bike. We connected for a bit and he said ‘I’d love to ride with you.’
I ended up on the trail a random day and passed him. I stopped and said ‘Jesse?’ That was 16 years ago, and he’s been my longest-time friend in Pittsburgh. That was the moment. We just hit it off. We knew how to ride bikes. We preferred riding on dirt. We never owned a road bike. We pushed each other.
We took off. Like, every single day, we were riding. It was super fun. Drinking IPAs, hanging around a fire. He just jived with who I was. That was the moment, the first real moment: and it wasn’t until like 22 years old.
Didn’t you get into racing at some point too?
Yeah, so Jesse is a Pittsburgh native. He knew a lot of other MTBers who did 24-hr races. It’s just basically who could do the most loops on the same track in 24 hours. I did a few of those. It was like 2009 or 2010 when I did my first race. And at that time, I was in grad school for exercise physiology. Everyone wore lycra. The racing atmosphere was heart rate, wattage, calories. It just got too nerdy for me.
I wanted to have fun. And I hated the uphill. And so we had this little crew in Pittsburgh and we’d all ride together. Most of them were from ProBike. And they wanted to sponsor me. And that was the start of getting into less cross country and more enduro racing. It was just becoming a thing. There’s the Month Of Mud, I did a few of those. Ohiopyle Super-D, which is where I grew up, at Deer Lake.
That was the first time where I thought this is pretty sweet. We’re racing to see who can go fastest downhill. this uphill stuff is for the birds. That’s when I got the nickname Donny Downhill.
But I wasn’t fully sponsored. I didn’t want to go pro. I more enjoyed the afterparty and hanging out with those types.
So would you say your love for mountain biking is more advocating now?
So I met my wife 13 years ago. She was the first girl that came into my life where I started prioritizing her time over my own. And she’s always been super respectful to biking stuff. For a while she traveled with us and we just clicked in that regard.
But when I started (Anglr) is when I’d say becoming more of an advocate happened. MTB totally became back seat. It shifted … before it was about not really caring, getting away for a weekend. Or getting off early to spend time on the trails with friends.
With the business, I didn’t have free time. I was dedicated to getting the company off the ground. So I lost it for a while. I lost the drive. There were still times I’d go out. But something changed. I started realizing that … mountain biking was kinda like meditation. When you’re actively riding, you’re not allowed to think about anything else. You cant, or you die or you get hurt.
When growing the business, biking was this meditative state. It was instant. My mind cleared as soon as I got on the bike. And I came back with more clarity. Those rides have become more precious to me. I’m way more deliberate now of clearing my mind — regrounding.
Tell us about Slag Force.
So there was this other group of guys like 10 years ago who were getting into it at the same time. They grew toward building trails. Each year, the trails got a little harder. Today, it’s night and day difference in how advanced the trails have become. There’s wooden features, rock drops. And I mean, those were all walking trails before. It’s amazing how it’s changed.
They’re trail development was underground, grass roots. They just wanted better trails. That group, I mean, they’ve gotten 17 miles of trail built. And it’s super cool: And they’ve done it in a landscape that is foreign to MTBers: it’s slag waste. You can’t develop it. It’s wasted land. There’s some amazing slope, good gradient. It’s all moldable. It’s not just loose topsoil — it’s rubble mixed with clay and debris from the steel days.
Now, people are traveling from around the country and coming into this area. And they’re finding these trails on forums online.
So on the advocacy side, I’ll move dirt but it’s not a passion of mine. I’m more on the business side. So back in November, we went out and rode. There’s new stuff, like 7 miles of trails just two blocks away from my house. It’s all slag, postindustrial wasteland. They had built this new section called Redemption Center. Wooden features. Tabletops, massive berms, etc.
We went out on a Saturday. There’s a specific section with a big wooden drop. It’s the biggest drop in park. It’s also the most rowdy section. So I do the drop and say ‘OMG… finally!’ I’ve been begging for downhill stuff. This is fantastic. We finish the ride, take some time getting back up to the parking lot and there’s this crowd of people standing around the drop. I had just gotten back from watching the UCI World Cup in Snowshoe. And there was that little piece of downhill world cup vibe.
This is so awesome. We chatted with some of the guys. Some are from Virginia, from Ohio, from New York. ‘And you drove all this way?’ OH yeah man!, they tell me. ‘This is so awesome. We heard about it on MTB Forum. This is better than anything back home.’
So I thought about it for a while. Finally, I decided I gotta call Rob. He’s the head of this underground group called Slag Force. Their thing is just revamp postindustrial land with an MTB mind. So I called him and said ‘you guys nailed it. That’s the coolest trail I’ve ridden in a long time.’
Here’s an idea: you should become legit. Form a trail company. Do this straight up full time. Get it funded. Let’s go.
Rob said he’d been talking to different entities, doing this and that for a couple years, trying to get some headway.
I told him, ‘I can help with that. I can build the story around what you want to do.’
Pittsburgh and all the little burgs around the city are primed for mountain biking. It got me thinking about Specialized “Biketown.”
Swissvale and Braddock are these types of communities. There’s less opportunity in this area; not much going on.
So I approached Braddock and Swissvale and basically showed them that mountain biking will bring traffic over to these communities.
And that’s kinda where we’re at. We’re getting green lights. We’ve been invited to join committees making decisions on how these trails intertwine. It’s been an interesting ride.
Describe the joys of cycling.
Riding causes two emotions or two skills that I think every person should really grasp as they become older. The first is to trust yourself. If you don’t trust yourself on the bike, you’re going to wreck really hard. If you overthink on a bike, again, you’re gonna wreck. The pain is instant and it’s obvious.
The other thing is the challenge. Not being afraid of a challenge. I think that’s why I like it. It’s hard. It’s edgy. It’s risky. And the reward is really high. It’s super rewarding when you’re riding a trail for the first time and you take on the challenge.
That skill of taking on the challenge and sending it, and accomplishing it is also one of those things where you can come back from a ride and feel like you just conquered the world.
Thanks for reading, cycopaths. Here’s to conquering the world with each and every pedal stroke.
Stay around for next week’s installment of Defining the Ineffable. In the meantime, get out there and ride your bike. Seriously. Do it.