Young downhill mountain biker Nathan de Vaux from Machynlleth has finished a very successful first year of racing the HSBC UK Downhill National Series.

Aged only 12, he was racing against 13 and 14-year olds from across the United Kingdom.

Nathan managed a solid top-10 result in every race, including sixth place at the National Championships in Rhyd-Y-Felin (Llangynog) and fifth at the Regional in Caersws.

He concluded his first year in the Juvenile category with a seventh place at the final round in Blaenau Ffestiniog which landed him an eighth place overall in the series, the highest ranked first year juvenile as well as highest ranked boy from Wales.

Nathan and younger brother Ruben, who is also a passionate downhill mountain biker, live with their Mum near Dyfi Bike Park, where they love riding with their friends at weekends.

Both boys dream of representing their area nationally and their country on the international stage, maybe even becoming World Champions.

The boys can regularly be found flying over the jumps as they whizz around the pump track in Machynlleth as it provides such a good training ground.

They love steep, technical tracks the best though and seem totally unfazed when descending a hillside over a rocky, rooty track at mind-blowing speeds.

Going into next season, Nathan is hoping to secure a podium spot at each race but this will require some solid training as well as fundraising towards the cost of coaching, race entries, travelling to the races, bike maintenance and so on.

Their first planned event was meant to be a screening of the newly released, inspirational documentary from Anthill Films about legendary mountain biker Stevie Smith and his legacy.

This was supposed to take place on Saturday 11 December at Pantperthog Village Hall but has had to be postponed as the local school has a lot of pupils off with Covid at the moment.Any local companies or businesses who would be able to support these young guns are warmly invited to get in touch with the family.You can see the boys' exploits and contact the family via the Instagram page @trailrippers.