Topham Racing

Welcome to my racing blog. I am a husband and father of three. By day I am a corporate lawyer in private practice with the Salt Lake City office of a regional law firm.  When I am not being a dad or a lawyer, I like to ride and race mountain bikes.

I grew up riding BMX bikes and doing jumps and tricks. Later, in college, I did a lot of road biking. I wasn’t immediately drawn to the mountain biking scene–probably because I was busy going to school and working in New York when the mountain biking culture took off. I did, however, buy my first mountain bike (a Trek 930 Singletrack) while living in Manhattan in the early 1990s. I used to ride it in Central Park, and it felt safer to have a bike that could jump curbs in order to avoid getting hit by the taxi cabs.

When I moved back to Utah in 1995, I brought the Trek 930 with me and quickly discovered the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. The first time I rode the BST I was hooked. I bought my first house within riding distance of the trail. Later, my wife and I bought a lot very near the City Creek trail heads and we built a house.

I bought my first full suspension bike off eBay. It was a Gary Fisher Sugar 2. It was ok, but I never really liked it all that much. A couple of years later I was researching bikes and I discovered Ellsworth. I had to have one. I had Mike and Steve at Hyland Cyclery build me an Ellsworth Moment. I still ride this bike five times a week, and to this day it is the nicest bike I have ever ridden. However, I learned the hard way that it is too heavy to race. So, in early 2008, I had Mike and Steve build me an Ellsworth Truth. At 24.4 lbs., the Truth is a racing machine. Although I prefer the Moment for everyday training and riding, there is no substitute for the Truth on Race Day. And Race Days are what this blog is all about.