Freeride champion, record-breaking stunt expert, entrepreneur, family man. It seems Cam Zink has more strings to his bow than a million-dollar Stradivarius. Here DirtTV catches up with Cam and family in the eighth instalment of their fascinating ‘Beyond the Bike’ series, in which we get a chance to delve into the lives of some of the most prominent stars of the MTB world.

Growing up in Reno, Nevada, like a lot of us Cam’s earliest biking memories involve playing around on a pint-sized BMX when he was little more than a toddler. Unlike most of us, however, Cam started to get serious about racing mountain bikes at the age of nine, and as a sixteen year-old he won the dual slalom event at the junior national championship. When he signed with Santa Cruz soon after, his future in racing looked set.

The burgeoning freeride scene, however, had other ideas. While Cam was putting in respectable performances at international downhill events, typically finishing in the top 50, he was really beginning to excel in his freeride and stunt riding. When he won the Crankworx Slopestyle (now Joyride) event in 2006, Cam took the difficult but wise decision to focus his career entirely on freeriding. The move paid off, and Cam was soon also setting records as a stunt rider. In 2014 he entered the Guinness Book of World Records for the longest backflip on a mountain bike with a flip measuring 100 feet and 3 inches.

With his move into business with Sensus, his own grip company which he started from scratch in 2009, and now his role at high-end MTB company YT Industries, it looks like Cam will be a fixture in the mountain biking world for many years to come.