Mountain Bikers Have the Best Gear Sheds. Chris Baddick’s Is Proof
Pro mountain biker Chris Baddick lives and trains in Boulder, Colorado. His gear room— equipped with a full bike-repair setup, nearly a dozen road and mountain rigs, and endless spare tires—is a dirt lover’s dream. Here’s how Baddick packs it all into an extra bedroom.
Arguably Baddick’s most important organizing tool, this rack holds eight bikes—’cross, road, and mountain. “Before I made this rack, it was a disaster room. Bikes everywhere,” says Baddick. “Every time you wanted to get to a bike, there would be like three in front of it.”
The star of the rack, Baddick’s Scott Spark race bike is “super light” and pretty easy to wrench on, he says.
A sturdy work stand is “the highest priority—it’s like the first thing you have to buy,” Baddick says.
Baddick built his own wheel rack to keep all the hoops organized and out of the way.
“Wheels are one of the hardest things to travel with, because they’re so delicate. I need race wheels and a pair of training wheels for races,” he says. This bag from wheel maker XeNTiS provides essential protection.
Though a real work table would be preferable, a desk works just fine for Baddick. “It’s got a nice secret drawer that pulls out, so I always have an empty space.” A bookcase shoved in the corner holds water bottles, nutrition, and other odds and ends.
No pro wants to waste time looking for the right tools, at home or on the road. “This toolbox is really nice because it only weighs like 15 pounds, so if I’m on the road, it’s pretty easy to throw in the back of the car,” says Baddick.
As you might expect, Baddick is pretty picky about the condition of the tires he races on, so he has a box full of rejects. “Even if a tire is only a little bit worn, I’m not going to race on it. Every time I race, I want my tires to be in super good shape.”
Chris won this cowboy hat at the Steamboat Stinger and proudly displays it in his bike room. “Every single year, someone else walked away with it, but this year, it was my year.”
