In the spotlight: Dave Johnson, sharing his skills and awesomeness

Cycling in Christchurch is all about regular people riding bicycles. But some of the many people who help make Christchurch a great place for cycling are anything but ordinary cyclists. Dave Johnson, RAD Bikes’ mechanics teacher and workshop manager, is one of these people. Riding bikes, racing bikes, fixing bikes, showing others how to fix their bikes, teaching bike skills, running BMX events, and building mountain bike trails – Dave Johnson has done it all.

Dave the cyclist

Like most of us, Dave started cycling as a child. He was given his first bike at age ten and was soon riding around Dunedin, which he describes as “always exciting and hard work” given the hilly terrain. Unlike most of us, he took up road biking and racing just a few years later (aged 13) after moving with his family to Upper Hutt. Road racing became a significant part of Dave’s life for the next ten years and he estimates he was training and riding about 800 kilometres a week at his peak.

He started mountain biking at 16, which was “also awesome” and provided a break from all the road bike training. Later, after a friend got into BMX riding, he bought himself a BMX bike to play around with too.

Dave was a competitive road cyclist and had ambitions to ride in the Tour de France, but it was not to be, and eventually he found the training too much of a chore. Back in Dunedin by now, he shifted his attention to BMX riding and racing, which became his passion for the next 15 years.

He describes BMX riding as exhilarating and entertaining, and he enjoyed racing. But the real gamechanger for Dave was discovering freestyle riding because he could do what he wanted, and it was all about having fun. He shifted to Christchurch during this time and started organising BMX jams, bringing together 20 to 30 riders for the day. Then came the creation of jumps and a trail on a property known as “The Jungle”, a week in the United States at BMX camp, and the creation of an indoor BMX park in a warehouse in Woolston, where Dave and several others lived for about six years.

Dave says he was lucky to be involved at a time when big ramps and jumps were getting started and freestyle BMX riding was getting more publicity. But after many broken bones and ten concussions, it was time for a change, and so Dave went back to mountain biking. This meant riding in the Port Hills, digging trails in the Port Hills (Dave helped build the Crocodile, Anaconda and Greenwood Park tracks) and having lots of fun.

Spending time in the hills is important to Dave. For him, it’s all about the breathing space, getting above the city and enjoying the view. He particularly loves the Mt Pleasant area, with its 360-degree views, plenty of space and an ungroomed natural environment. He enjoys unstructured sessions with friends, everyone playing around with the terrain and supporting each other. And he still likes going on adventures – Craigieburn is a favourite – when he can find time.

In the past few years, Dave has gone back to road biking too, which he finds easier and better for his fitness. He’s got himself an old Healing to ride around the city, taking him full circle to his teenage years, when he rode thousands of kilometres on a Healing Skylark enjoying the fresh air and the freedom.

Dave the mechanic

Dave realised the importance of understanding bike mechanics from his own riding. He recalls taking a long walk home with a broken chain as a teenager and thinking about how much trouble he’d be in. He knew he needed the ability to resolve any mechanical problems when he was out on his adventures. It helped that his Dad was into car mechanics, so Dave had spent a lot of time in his workshop and was used to pulling things apart and putting them back together again.

Toward the end of his high school years, Dave got a Christmas holiday job assembling bikes. That led, at Dave’s request, to Upper Hutt Bicycles taking him on as an apprentice when he was 17. Two years later, he was a certified bike mechanic and went on to work for Bicycles Unlimited in Wellington before shifting back to Dunedin for a job at R&R Sport.

For the past 25 years, Dave has been living, working and playing in Christchurch. He was attracted to Christchurch’s reputation as the city of cycles and wanted to be part of it. He’s worked for a range of bike shops since then, and currently splits his time between Chill, where he’s head mechanic, and his part-time role at RAD Bikes as mechanics teacher and workshop manager.

Dave the teacher

Dave started teaching bike mechanics in the early 2000s when he was asked to take on a course at the old CPIT (Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology). He taught that course for about ten years and later did some teaching at the University of Canterbury’s recreation centre, Hub Cycles and Basic Bikes.

About eight years ago, he started teaching mechanics to the volunteers at RAD Bikes. And, as you’ll know if you read the recent post on Jess Smale and Rad Bikes, things really started to ramp up when RAD Bikes introduced public mechanics courses and beginner workshops in 2020, along with extra ‘club night’ sessions for RAD volunteers to access the skills of Dave and others. (Check out RAD Bikes’ website for more information.)

Dave is a big believer in sharing the skills that you have and finds it satisfying to see people learning practical mechanical skills that they can use. He says RAD Bikes caters to different groups, teaching basic skills to the public and more advanced mechanics to people (like the young Dave) who want to go off on biking adventures. There’s some crossover too, with those who have more advanced skills volunteering their time to help others fix their bikes at the drop-in sessions.

He says RAD Bikes is an incredible initiative to be involved with and points to its “awesome achievements” in helping thousands of people to fix their bikes and learn new skills as well as recycling tens of thousands of bikes and bike parts. He doesn’t think that uptake has plateaued yet and is enthusiastic about the platform it provides for him to teach and share his skills. (Having attended one of Dave’s workshops, I can attest to his enthusiastic and knowledgeable approach and absolutely recommend you consider doing one if you haven’t already.)

Dave also teaches mountain bike riding skills. For the last 20 years, he’s taught senior students at Burnside High School a mix of riding skills and mechanics. They spend two days in the forest and do an overnight trip to Craigieburn. With roughly 50 students participating every year, that’s a good 1,000 young people that have benefited from Dave’s knowledge and experience. (And that’s not counting several years of doing something similar with students at Southland College.)

Dave on cycling

Dave sees cycling as a good solution for a lot of things – it’s good for the environment, it’s good for the individual and it’s good for the community. He personally finds it a good outlet for getting space and mental clarity, as well as being fun and good for his fitness. And through his involvement in RAD he’s seen how biking can help people sort their problems out.

His advice to others is to just get out there and enjoy riding. The South Island is an incredible play area and people in Christchurch are lucky to have access to the Port Hills – so make use of them.