SUMMER2016
MOUNTAINLIFE
85
words :: Feet Banks
Good bike mechanics are born, not built.
Sure, there are courses a person can take and
certifications to achieve, but at the end of the
day, it comes down to a state of mind: you’re
either a tinkerer or you’re not.
“I started building stuff when I was 7 or so, I
guess,” says Fraser Newton, Squamish resident
and chief mechanic for the BC Bike Race. “I
grew up in Ontario, living ten kilometres outside
of town on the Niagara escarpment. I spent a
lot of my youth buying 50-dollar dirt bikes and
you ride ‘em until they break, then fix them.
That’s country living. My dad is an engineer, so
he liked to have a lot of space to tinker.”
And for kids in the country, freedom has two
wheels. “I got a red, 24-inch Supercyle that
had 18 speeds. All of a sudden, I had gears
and could ride the dirt bike trails when my dirt
bike was broken. Working on the farm, I would
ride the tracks and fields on the way home
and it just clicked. Next thing I knew I had a
job riding a Dickie Dee Ice Cream bike around
a conservation area. I’d ride ten kilometres to
work then pedal around on this 300-pound,
three-wheeler ice cream box on trails all day.
Then I would ride some mountain bike trails
on the Dundas Escarpment after work, then
ride home. I lived in the boonies and couldn’t
drive, so I was putting in 50-kilometre days at
age 15.”
Riding that much, and with a natural inclination
to fix things, it wasn’t long before Fraser got his
first job in a bike shop. “My buddy and I were
hanging around anyways, so the shop guys
started paying us. A Scottish guy named Lauch
Cameron, who had a shop calledWheels
MOUNTAIN
LIFER
FRASER
NEWTON
Have sheepwill travel. HAROOKZ
