The New North American Trials Champ

Sean and Ian Farrar are two young men from Colorado who have been riding trials bikes since they were little kids, when their father Doug introduced them to the sport. Over the years they have continued to build their trials skills. For the past couple years, they have been competing in the elite category, which is the hardest level in trials competitions.

For the past few years, the North American Trials Championship (NATC) has been held at the Bentonville Bike Fest. The NATC competition is currently the pinnacle event for trials riding in North America. Starting in 2022, the top trials riders from Europe have been invited to compete in a UCI C1 event at the Bentonville Bike Fest. These riders joined the North American riders during the NATC, which has resulted in the competition sections becoming even more difficult than prior years. In 2023, the NATC competition also served as the qualifier for the UCI C1 event held the following day – meaning that the North American riders were competing with the Europeans (though only North American riders qualify for NATC awards). While the Europeans make some of the gates look easy, rest assured that they absolutely are not – there are some big moves as well as some fairly technical lines required to get through the course.

If you’ve been involved with bike trials in North America, you’ve probably noticed that most of the riders are older. The trials competition scene has been in a bit of a lull here for probably a decade. While trials seems to be making a resurgence, we need more young people to become involved in order to ensure a vibrant future for the sport here. Over the past couple years I have seen more young riders, which is definitely a good sign. This year I wanted to highlight some of those younger riders – the Farrar brothers in particular. While I saw them at the 2019 NATC event in Exeter, RI, I didn’t actually meet them until last year at the 2022 Bentonville Bike Fest. This year I figured I should probably help tell their story.

Fortunately, the NATC event begins with the Novice, Sport, and Expert class riders all competing first, followed by the Elite class riders in the afternoon. That meant that I could participate as a rider in the competition, and also follow Sean and Ian around with a video camera while they competed. I truly enjoyed being able to follow them through the entire competition and watch them battle the course. Their father, Doug Farrar, also followed them throughout the competition, providing them encouragement and cheering them on. I can imagine the pride he felt as he watched his boys giving it their best shot.

In addition to filming Sean and Ian as they rode in the competition, I also interviewed them to add some depth and story to the video. While the riding is certainly fun to watch, the interviews really add personality to the video so I’m thankful that they indulged me with a few minutes of time so that I could help tell their story. As I mentioned above, I consider it critical to tell the story of young riders like Sean and Ian – not only to highlight their achievements, but hopefully to inspire other young riders to try the sport as well.