Leo Kast, the interview

Get to know AMS ambassadors. Second episode, interviewing our awesome Leo Kast.

Seat, grab a beer and enjoy the read:

 

AllMountainStyle.com: Hello Leo, let's start by asking to present yourself and to tell us a litle bit of your biking background

Leo Kast: My name is Leo Kast, I am 30 years old and come from Weinähr, a small town in Germany. In the summer of 2009 at the age of 25 I started mountain biking. Initially, only to the sporting aspect to catch the last few years "lack of sportsmanship" again, but quickly the mountain biking has become my greatest passion. Mountain biking has changed me and my life. I think like many other mountain biker, that mountain biking is not a sport, but rather attitude to life! I prefer to ride fast downhill tracks with my big bike. But often I ride my home trails with the hardtail because you can combine well with a tour. Very often I record my runs and published it with a few information about the trails or bikeparks on my homepage. My homepage is my second hobby and now it´s all about mountain biking only.

AMS: How is the mountain bike scene in your area? 

LK: I live in a valley area, so our riding are is more about hiking trails than mountains. Most of them 3-4 minutes fun on singletrails down the valley. We do not have proper downhill tracks there unfortunately, only in bike parks. The illegal track building is punished here, so you can not dig big. Nevertheless, there are some singletrails that are very technical and have some challenging passages. However, it's not for the downhill bike, so I ride two bikes. A hardtail for demanding technical singletrack and my big bike for bikeparks and downhill tracks. In Germany hiking trails are well kept and so you have many tracks and paths for several kilometers. There are lots of simple trails to go for a ride, but for people like me, is this just training purpose. Lately here is steadily increasing legal and official tracks, so mountain biking is in full coming!

 

AMS: Do you ride mainly for training of for just to have fun?

LK:  Mainly I ride for fun! I'm out with friends and laugh a lot. When I ride alone, it is again more a kind of training. I'm trying to explore my weaknesses, because it's when I have all the time to analize. Be better to still have more fun is my motto. :-D

AMS: How an amateur racer like you combines racing on the weekends, work and family?

LK: Race weekends in combination with work and family life, is not a problem for me. As long as I'm not hurt, it makes no difference at work. I'm not in a relationship and have no children, so I define my daily life totally according to my wishes. This year after the last few races I've decided to take a long break. I need to stop because I was starting to become too ambitious and sometimes stopped having  fun. I was under stress. I have to find to me, the roots of my passion for biking and not the ambition to race. So I need to take distance from racing for a time. 

AMS: Which are your goals for this year?

LK: My goals for 2014 are to develop myself further. To improve my riding style because next year I want to be a mountain biking riding skills coach, if all goes well.

AMS: If you only had to have one bike. Which one would you choose?

LK: Damn this is hard, but as much as I like big bikes, it would be an enduro. In the past I was all the time on the big bike, but now I'm more and more on the hardtail, so I guess and Enduro bike would be the perfect mix. 

AMS: How did you started leokast.de and how has it evolved during the years?

LK: My homepage "leokast.de" was initially only a kind of archive for all my pictures and videos (built in late 2011). I started to get knows through my videos on YouTube and mountain biking forums. Eventually, visitors began to write asking for advice. Seems I was inspiring confidence ;-)

Then I started to create tutorials and product reviews, simply to share my experiences with others. A year later I was even more known and so people talked me into bikeparks to "Ah... you're the Leo who makes the recordings, right?" Somehow I became acquainted with a couple of manufacturers and I got my first partnerships. In recent years I have been noticed more and more, but I'm far from being a professional rider and I think that's what people like, I'm just like them, as the broad masses of mountain bikers.

My homepage is now my second hobby, I love working on it. And I am very thankful and happy about the supporters I have. Everything thanks to my homepage... or... is it just my passion for this life, the biker life?

Thanks Leo, and good luck.