Finding the Yeti | Toowoomba’s Oliver Colthup is taking on the world

Standing atop the Mackenzie Frenzy DH in Toowoomba, at the 2023 Oceania DH Championships, Oliver Colthup struggled to quiet his mind. Flatting in the first 30 seconds of his seeding run was yet another knock to his confidence coming off a difficult National Champs at Thredbo.

“It was not a good time for me in Thredbo. Mentally, I couldn’t get into the right headspace, and I’d never ridden a track like that before — never anything that high speed. I was struggling all week and then my race run was nowhere near what I am capable of,” he says. “It was a shot at my confidence, (I felt like I) was just fumbling around like an idiot.”

Not an ideal run-up for a Continental Championship. With the race in his backyard, the Toowoomba local felt pressure — admittedly self-induced — to perform. This was his training ground. He knows the track and all of the sneaky lines, and was a definite favourite in the field.

Colthup, now 16, had an ace in his corner — well, two actually — Richie Rude and Jared Graves. In 2022, after winning his first DH National Champs in Maydena, fellow Toowoomba resident Graves reached out to Colthup.

When he won that race — like that — I took a bit more notice and told him I’d be happy to help him out, and it all sort of took off from there

“After National Champs in Maydena, he won Under 15s by a country mile. For as long as I’ve been racing, I’ve always been hoping there’d be a young local kid to help out, but nobody really fit the bill.

When he won that race — like that — I took a bit more notice and told him I’d be happy to help him out, and it all sort of took off from there,” says Graves.

Since his retirement, Graves has been mentoring and coaching Yeti-sponsored riders — though at this stage, Colthup had yet to join the Yeti Tribe. Rude hung around in Australia after the Tassie leg of the EDR to train and race the Oceania Championships to earn UCI points so that he could make a berth into World Cup Downhills that season.

“Jared and Richie came to the top of my race run, and both helped me get into the right mindset and prepare,” he says.

Colthup went on to win the U17 Oceania champs by nearly 10 seconds and would have been fast enough to slot into 8th place in the Men’s Elite field.

Now riding for Yeti Australia, Shimano, a newly minted member of the Monster Army, and also supported by a Toowoomba business called Soil Tech, this youngster from South East Queensland is gearing up for his first Euro campaign, aiming to make a splash.

From Mackay to Toowoomba | Meet Oliver Colthup

Born in Mackay, the Coluthup family arrived in Toowoomba in 2018 via Charters Towers — a rural town in North Queensland about 100 km from Townsville.

While his parents are mountain bikers, his first love was motorbikes.

“My dad had me on motorbikes as soon as I could ride one. I was riding motorbikes at about two and a half, and then racing them from four till about ten years old,” he says. “I was about eight or nine when I started riding mountain bikes.”

After moving to Toowoomba initially they were on the opposite side of town from Jubilee Park, and Colthup says they would ride as a family at least two days a week after school. Twelve months later, the Colthups moved 100m from the Jubilee trailhead. From then on, if Colthup wasn’t at school, or sleeping, you’d probably find him somewhere in the trail network.

Colthup first remembers racing as a nine-year-old at the under-11 XC state championships in Mackay, which he won.

But it wasn’t until 2021 he signed up for his first downhill, and the more races he entered, the more he kept finding himself at the pointy end of the field, riding on a downhill bike borrowed from a family friend — that was way too big.

Even still for 2022 he set his sights on a national champs jersey.

Life hits and a community comes together

It doesn’t take long in speaking with Colthup to realise the pivotal role that family plays in his life.

Of course, he is still a teenager, but at every opportunity, without prompt, he mentions his family. He still gets out to ride dirt bikes with his dad when he is home from a fly-in-fly-out shift, and his mum comes to his races not just to watch but also to don a number plate herself.

The 2022 Downhill National Champs were in Maydena, which is quite a trek from Toowoomba and requires a fair investment just to get to the start line. It was something that the whole Colthup family had been working towards.

In July 2021, life hit hard. Colthup’s mother, Leanne, was diagnosed with breast cancer. That battle took priority. A GoFundMe was set up by a friend in the riding community to help Colthup get to Maydena and put him on a bike that fits.

The GoFundMe would not only raise enough to get Colthup to Abbotts Peak and on his own bike, but he also came home with a green and gold jumper—a testament to not only the promise of this young rider but also the community behind him.

“We ended up taking two weeks off school before we even left, not to risk getting Covid. Everyone had been so generous, and I didn’t want to take any risks and miss it. I just worked really hard and did heaps of training to try and get ready,” he says.

“It really showed me the amount my parents and everyone was willing to sacrifice for me to follow my dreams. I had the realisation that I have this amazing opportunity to try and make it,” he says. “It made me want to ride more, and it also gave me an escape from everything.”

Paying it foward

Remember that downhill bike that was way too big for Colthup? That belonged to Mal Campbell. He first met Oli when he was a youngster on a kid’s hardtail and immediately saw something in him.

“Straight away his confidence. You have to have confidence as an athlete, and that was (something I saw) from the moment I met him as a little grom,” he tells Flow.

Campbell has played a pivotal role in supporting Colthup’s riding, and a big part of that was lending him his personal Santa Cruz V10. It’s not everyone that’s going to lend out such a bike to a teenager.

“I like helping people, and I like seeing people do well — he was always going to make it,” he says.

Campbell notes that this wasn’t a handout, and he wasn’t given anything.

“He had to come in and do chores around the workshop. He was absolutely hopeless at everything he did, but it was the principle of it. I made sure he showed up a couple of days a week after school. He’d come (in and) block the vacuum cleaning the workshop or (I’d have him) empty the bins,” he laughs.

There was another stipulation as well.

“His rule has always been, if I do this for you, you gotta do this with my kids. He’s got two little boys, and they are adorable,” says Colthup.

Campbell says that Colthup is starting to mentor other kids in Toowoomba, and as he has started to work his way up through the ranks he has watched him mature.

The turns in Toowoomba have a lot to teach

“The Ollie that we met wasn’t the Ollie we see now. He was sort of about himself (when he was younger). Now, he is really about the sport, and you see him talking to other kids and people and helping them. That’s what I was trying to impart on him — to be about the sport, not about himself,” he says.

Trained by Toowoomba

There are trail networks sprinkled around southeast Queensland, but few garner the reputation of Jubilee Park. About two hours from anywhere, a substantial riding community has formed around the trail network—a warm and welcoming one at that.

Toowoomba has a reputation for its rough and janky riding, but also the variety on offer from what is a relatively compact park. While a number of the tracks have been redone in the last few years, Colthup feels it’s that jankiness and tight, flat turns that have helped him excel when it’s time to bolt a race plate on.

“The turns in Toowoomba have a lot to teach,” he says.

“You’ll go from black soil that’s all cracked and marbly, and then on a different track, it will be just a dust bowl of clay. The thing that everyone says about Toowoomba is that no one can get grip here, which is a really useful thing to have,” he says. “If you’re constantly riding tracks that people feel they can’t get grip on, you know how to get out of control and loose, and bring it back.”

Colthup also says the variety on offer at Jubilee Park usually allows him to find a proxy similar to the crux of other DH venues around the country to prepare, or at least get into the right headspace to build a race run when he arrives at the track he’ll be competing on.

“Even for Awaba this year, there wasn’t a huge amount, but there were a few sections on our downhill track that had the right janky rocks. Then Awaba has the sections with all the awkward turns down at the bottom, and instantly I can think of a track in Toowoomba with (similar) steep, awkward rut turns,” he says. “Just riding all of the tracks in Toowoomba, you gain so much skill on the bike from all the variety of terrain.”

Becoming a Yeti

Colthup has quickly ascended through the ranks, now a part of the Yeti program, the Monster Army, and Shimano.

By his telling, one of Graves’ main goals was to get Colthup into the Yeti program, so that he could meet all of the right people, begin to make those connections and start moving up.

Beyond the business side of mountain biking, Graves has also helped Colthup with this riding. And while lessons on how much more he needed to be pumping on every run, the physical skills are not where he’s found the most value.

“He’s helped me learn to calm my mind at races and the skills I need to keep my head focused and ride well,” he says. “He’s helped with a bit of a warm-up. The first time I did it was a race where I was stressing and freaking out. He talked to me and worked me through this warm-up. Now when I do it, instantly I am completely focused and ready for a race run.”

It was nerve wracking hearing him behind me. In my head, I was just like, “Go faster, go faster, go faster

“He’s a bit of a sponge at the moment, and he just wants to learn it all and take it all in. That’s one of the things that’s going to help him in the long run,” Graves says.

Of course, there have been some other enviable perks to working with one of the most accomplished gravity riders in the world, like spending time training with other Yeti riders like Richie Rude and having him chase you down your home trails.

“It was nerve wracking hearing him behind me. In my head, I was just like, “Go faster, go faster, go faster,” laughs Colthup. “I showed him a few lines, and then the next lap I was following, and he just pulled for this stupid gap I’d never thought to try before,” he says.

“There were a few lines he was showing me where to go. It was crazy how quickly he can pick up lines and find them. It was great to ride with him and see how a pro rider actually trains,” says Colthup.

Swinging for the Euro fences

Since the start of the year, Colthup has been building speed. He found redemption at Cannonball, winning his age group and posting a time that would have had him in 14th place in the Pro Men. He did the same at Nationals in Awaba and Crankworx Cairns, and he’s now preparing for his first Euro Tour.

“The build-up has been good. I’m just working on the bike, building my speed up and riding as best as I can — and it’s been epic. I’m just loving it,” he says.

Colthup’s overseas campaign is going to be a quick strike mission, hitting four races: the IXS Cups in Verbier, Switzerland, and Abetone, Italy, and the International Rookies Championship at Schladming — which is actually two races in one weekend.

“Schladming was my main focus because in the past a lot of the people that have done well there have gone on to do great things — some winners in the past were Jackson Goldstone and Vali Höll,” he says.

“I’m really excited for the experience of being in Europe and racing at such a high level,” he continues.

I don’t see any reason why he’s not going to continue to show the speed he’s got here over in Europe

“It’s going to be his first big test. He’s won everything in his age category and he’s just getting faster and faster. He’s mastered all of the Australian style tracks, but how it goes in Europe is a whole different game,” says Graves.

With that, Graves has also sought not to put Euro racing on a pedestal.

“I just told him to treat it like every other race and get from A to B as quickly as you can. Take everything you’ve worked on, and take everything you’ve learned, and just transfer it into a different style of course,” says Graves.

“I don’t see any reason why he’s not going to continue to show the speed he’s got here, over in Europe,” he continues.

For a young rider that has seen an expedited accent to the upper echelons of domestic racing — even if he’s still a junior — it’s not hard to see why this kid from Toowoomba has caught the eye of behemoths like Yeti, Monster Energy and Shimano. Frankly, he’s got his head screwed on straight, and none of the sparkly acclaim or natural ability has inflated his ego.

Well-spoken and gracious, that confidence that Cambell noticed straight is unmistakable even over the phone, and he is still miles away from cockiness. And when he says he’s going to Europe to win, I believe him.

Photos: Jesse Chirizzi / @jesswahmedia