Surprised it's taken that long tbh, especially given some of the other (deserving) British names in the back catalogue.
Always been a hero since I got his autograph at Bike ninety-something back in the day. Oh, and him absolutely mullering his rear wheel in Dirt! To a young teen, that level of decadence was proper rock star behaviour. On reflection, it was trashed - so trashing it even more wasn't doing any harm.
I met him at a round of the UK downhill championships at Queen Elizabeth Country Park in Hampshire, probably around late 90’s early 2000’s.
He was pushing his bike up the road to the start line and I offered him a lift in my T4 as he was about a third of the way up and from memory puffing on an inhaler.
He turned the offer down but I remember my friends and I talked about nothing else for the next two months.
Sean Palmer and Rob Warner both had a similar vibe about them and both changed/influenced DH into what it became on both sides of the pond in the 90s, also surprised they both weren’t in the hall of fame already but nice to see