BEHIND-THE-PAGES
Shredder MTB Zine Founder – Stuart Leel
We’ve got a kindred spirit across the pond – his name is Stuart Leel. Stuart owns and operates Shredder Mag out of the UK and balances a full time job and paying the bills with a core, DIY zine dedicated to awesome mountain bike content. Shredder is very much an extension of Stuart’s personality and exudes an almost 80’s era vibe of radness and entertainment. We’ve had quite a few issues of the zine shipped over to us here and always enjoy the art, stories and passion behind the project. We’ve got major respect for Stuart and his motivation to keep print alive in a core way for an audience searching for printed pleasures. Keep on truckin’ Stuz!
Name: Stuart Leel
Age: 31
Location: The Shredquarters – Aberdeen, Scotland
Favorite Food: Pizza
Favorite Type of Trail: Pleney
WHO IS STUART LEEL?
A mellow fellow who loves riding bikes and making things.
WHAT ARE YOU ABOUT?
Recently I’ve been busy crafting the new issue of Shredder MTB Zine, I’m currently working on the fifth installment and enjoying it more than ever. It can be fairly time consuming but I try to get out on my DH bike whenever I can. I’m spoiled for riding spots at the moment as I’ve started building a small network of trails close to my house and the locals have been killing it with build days at a few locations around the city/shire. I’m also a massive BMX fan and love getting out on my S&M for a play around on a curb whenever I get the chance.
As well as riding bikes I could well be the worlds biggest bike media nerd… I recently moved house and have created a home office area to host over 20 years of bike memorabilia. The collection covers an unbelievable amount of magazines, large quantities of VHS tapes and hundreds of DVD’s. Aside from bikes I enjoy listening to music, collecting ‘zines and eating lots of pizza.
DO YOU HAVE A NICKNAME? IF SO HOW’D YOU EARN IT?
I acquired the nickname Stuz when I was 8 years old and have been known as that ever since. Unfortunately there’s no cool story behind how I got it, my friends and I were goofing around putting Z’s at the end of our names but for some reason it only stuck with me… I didn’t think I’d still be getting called Stuz 23 years later!
WHAT’S YOUR BACKGROUND? BIKE AND NON-BIKE RELATED.
My background has very much been all about bikes. There was never really a time when I wasn’t riding. My dad taught me how to ride a bike at a very young age, although I’d say it was probably when I was about eight years old when I really got into mountain biking. I remember my friend Ben invited me over to his place after school and told me to take my bike. At the time it was an Ammaco BMX. His house was surrounded by a forest and his older brothers, Giles and James, showed us around. That was my first taste of mountain biking and I couldn’t get enough of it, despite having the wrong tool for the job!
I didn’t really know much about the sport outside our local bubble so I saved up my pocket money to buy MBUK each month. That was the beginning of my fascination with the media side of the sport. Thinking about it, the Aberdeen scene was an amazing crew to grow up with. I had a few guys around my age, Ben, Rob, Jack and Neale who were great fun to ride with. We all looked up to the older riders who had the best bikes and were way quicker than us. Robin, John, James, Giles and Stevo made up the cool crew. Those older guys really helped me gain a lot of my riding skills, normally by bullying me into doing huge jumps! As I grew up I continued riding through my years at school, mostly on my own every night and then with my pals on the weekends at either Pitfichie or Scolty Hill if we could snag a lift from someone.
HOW LONG HAD YOU BEEN IN THE BIKE INDUSTRY/BIZ BEFORE SHREDDER?
I started working in my local bike shop part time at the age of sixteen, I was appointed the position of chief coffee brewer/junior bike assembler. When I left school a few months later I began working in the shop full time as a sales assistant and quickly moved through the ranks over the years from salesman to mechanic, workshop manager, assistant manager, concession store manager and then finally the store manager. I was with the company for eleven years and loved it, although by the age of 28 my interests started veering towards more creative work, which led me to leave the shop to pursue my passion for graphic design.
Whilst studying Visual Communication at North East Scotland College as a mature student I worked for a local BMX shop called 20Twenty where I did a bit of everything–sales, spannering, graphic design, videography and anything and everything in-between. Sadly the shop closed down recently which marked the end of an era for BMX in Scotland. Shout out to Mike ‘Mingo’ Ellington for putting in the work over the years!
Bizarrely I still feel like I’m an outsider looking in at the bike industry with Shredder as the ethos and aesthetic I’ve built around the brand isn’t really what I’d associate with the bike biz.
WAS THERE A CERTAIN MOMENT OR EVENT THAT WAS THE CATALYST FOR YOU TO START SHREDDER?
I was genuinely so gutted when Dirt magazine ended in print, I still remember hearing it was going to stop and I just straight up refused to believe it. I find it hard to put into words just how much the magazine shaped me growing up, from pointing me in the right direction of how to dress with their ‘Style Monger’ section to, unknowingly at the time, shaping my taste in graphic design with Chris Noble’s early David Carson inspired page layouts. I think the magazine stayed true to its beliefs until the end, however issues 1-32 really were the golden years for me.
I took the inspiration I gained through reading Dirt and realized there was a massive gap in the market, but I also wanted to make my own mark on mountain biking by making something unique that featured articles and people I hadn’t seen getting exposure elsewhere. I decided to heavily feature art and design within mountain biking as I think it’s an important part of the culture and one that’s often overlooked.
I thought about how every bike on the market has a different typeface on the frame, all t-shirt illustrations are created by artists, every track was built by a trail builder… I wanted to find out about the people who were behind creating all of this who were not necessarily getting the props they deserved for it.
WHAT IS SHREDDER ABOUT?
Shredder is all about good times riding bikes. It doesn’t matter if you’re 10 or 50 years old, if you ride 26” or 29” or whether you’re a downhiller or enduro rider. Shredder is made for people who have a passion for riding and want to learn about the individualists doing something different within our sport.
The Shredder branding is heavily based around a Lo-Fi aesthetic with plenty of VHS static and VCR text. A lot of these designs are a play on the outdated media formats of yesteryear, which is a category that print has fallen into in recent years. The videos I make always have a throwback feel to them and I try to experiment with old mini DV and Super 8mm cameras whenever I can.
WHO DO YOU MAKE SHREDDER ‘ZINES FOR?
As selfish as it sounds, I mostly make them for myself. I’m trying to make something that I’m happy with on a personal level, although when I get a message or e-mail from someone saying they really enjoyed the ‘zine it makes it all worth while for me.
IN A TIME WHEN PEOPLE SAY PRINT IS DEAD, WHAT DROVE YOU TO UNDERTAKE A NEW PRINT PUBLICATION RATHER THAN JUST MAKE A WEBSITE WHERE YOU COULD SHARE THE SAME STORIES?
I’m just a bit of a stickler for physical things really. Some people don’t get it, but whenever I buy music it has to be a CD or Vinyl. I love holding something in my hands rather than looking into a screen; the feeling of nice paper stock and the smell of print just doesn’t compare to staring into a monitor. Plus there’s the collector side of me that just loves to have a full set of something.
When I first started making videos to upload online I felt like I was putting a lot of hard work in, but it also felt very disposable by how quickly it moved through the news feeds on websites. I think at the time that also made me want to make something that had a longer life span. I’m not totally against online media though, I think things like race coverage, product reviews and team announcements need to be covered online as it’s important information that needs to travel quickly.
Growing up in a time where you would find out who was World Champion a month after the race took place really did suck. With that in mind, I wanted to focus on writing articles that would last the test of time. Articles that a rider could read five years later and still enjoy it for the passion and the opinions made.
WHAT ARE YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGES IN CREATING AN ISSUE OF SHREDDER?
I think time is my biggest restraint. I work full time whilst making the ‘zine so it is very much a hobbyist project, which I do for fun. Writing is probably the longest process… The ideas come very naturally to me, writing them can sometimes be a struggle. I’ve never officially studied writing other than when I was at school doing higher English so my writing process is very unorthodox and involves making a note, trying to make it into a sentence, then returning and adjusting it about five times before I’m completely happy with it.
It sounds tedious but it works for me and I’ll only print an article I’m completely happy with. Saying that, I still have half written articles dating back to Issue 2 of the zine, which I just can’t quite finish. Another hurtle is the delivery and storage of the zine, thankfully it’s not so bad now that I’ve moved house, but during the creation of Issue 4 I was living in a top story flat… taking a pallet delivery of hundreds of ‘zines up those stairs almost killed me!
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE PART CREATING AN ISSUE?
I love the whole process from beginning to end, it’s often very challenging but there’s a wide variety of creative tasks involved. If I had to choose, I’d probably say the design element is the most fun for me. If it’s an article I’ve written myself I try to convey the feelings of the words in the way I design it. I always like to use Ronan Taylor’s article from Issue 1 as an example of this as I created a busy page layout to match Ronan’s erratic nature, both on and off the bike! I also love researching and coming up with questions to tailor an interview to an individual.
HOW DO YOU COME UP WITH IDEAS FOR YOUR FEATURE STORIES AND DECIDE WHAT TO PUT IN EACH BOOK?
The features always start off as a passing thought, a sort of “it would be cool to write about this” which then leads to me making some barely readable scribbles in my notebook. I’m constantly making notes and ideas can come to mind at the most random of times. I also have a long list of people I want to eventually conduct interviews with and I’m always finding out about new characters from Instagram scrolls and YouTube searches.
DO YOU HAVE A GOAL FOR SHREDDER, OR THE PEOPLE WHO READ IT?
I’ve never really thought about an end goal before but I guess I just want to educate the reader about a rider or subject they may not be overly familiar with. That and to just get the reader stoked to get out on their bike. I’ve had a few people say they’ve been inspired to get back into drawing/art after reading the ‘zine, which is really rewarding to hear.
WHAT DO YOU THINK THE MOUNTAIN BIKE WORLD IS MISSING?
It’s something I talk about in my ‘zines a lot, but what I miss most about mountain biking is the culture that surrounded it when I was growing up. I miss watching Sprung videos and reading Dirt magazine. It really felt like they were made by people who were passionate about the sport and were finding creative ways to document it. The identity they gave the sport had a certain style, which I think is missing right now.
Nowadays I see so many cheesy viral videos or just content that has no real value when scrolling through most of the MTB websites. These sites are so dependent on making sure they get enough views to try to stay relevant that they post as much about the sport as possible, whether it’s of any real interest or not… It definitely comes across as quantity over quality to me. I think because of this the sport is often portrayed in a way I’m not that into because the cool stuff can pass by too quickly.
From a racing point of view I hear a lot of complaints about how the current UCI DH series is run so it would be cool to see an alternative downhill race series with a similar structure to the EWS. From talking to riders and reading interviews it sounds like the EWS is held in high regard, it’s cool to hear that they can work closely with the riders to make something everyone is happy with.
WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT MOUNTAIN BIKING AND THE BIKE SCENE? WHAT MAKES YOU LOVE THIS SPORT?
From a personal riding point of view I’m happiest when I’m riding a trail littered with jumps and berms. It could be on my own or with a crew, as long as the trail flows and I’m feeling confident on my bike it’ll be a good day.
From an industry point of view I love 50-01, The Loam Wolf, Wide-Open, Fast As Fuck, Vanzacs, Sick Bicycle Co, Can’t Quit Cartel and FPUK – these guys prove that there are more DIY brands than ever and are perfect examples of mountain biking done right in my opinion. You can tell a lot of those guys are taking inspiration from outside of our sport but at the same time they’re doing their own thing and making MTB look so much cooler than the clean cut image that I think the sport is often portrayed with. I don’t want it to ‘just be another extreme sport’; I want it to have its own style and its own culture. I think we’re in safe hands as long as these guys continue to push the sport in their own unique direction, as well as inspire more people to take the road less traveled.
IF YOU COULD PICK ANY PLACE TO RIDE, WHERE WOULD IT BE AND WHAT BIKE WOULD YOU BE RIDING?
I’ve had some of my best days riding at my local spot Scolty Hill in Aberdeen, although I’d have to say it’s hard to beat a good day in Morzine on my transition TR500. The level of riding there is just incredible! There’s nothing like riding some of the worlds best trails then ending the day with a pizza from Mama’s and a few Mützigs at Robbo’s. It gets no better.
To order copies of Shredder, visit the website at Shreddermtbzine.com.
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