For the past several years, Trevor Bodogh has been a familiar sight at the Rockpile in downtown St. Catharines.
The 25-year-old St. Catharines resident has spent countless hours riding his custom bicycle up, over and on the rocks at the busy city intersection.
"I remember progressing from the three little stairs there and then it was 'I was going to try these rocks. At the Rockpile, you would get all these people going by the corner there hooting and hollering," the graduate of Lakeport and Sheridan College said.
The nephew of world champion curler Marilyn Bodogh and accomplished amateur golfer Bernie Bodogh is in the process of trying to make a go of a career as an extreme cyclist. He has done bike shows and bike races and is hoping to be a busker in Niagara-on-the-Lake this summer.
"It's my passion. I don't know if this is possible to this for a living, but this is what I'm trying to do. People call it extreme cycling or reversing gravity. I get all sorts of great comments from people so I've picked up those names from the comments."
He lives at home with his mother Louise and is looking for corporate sponsors and more events to perform at. He has already travelled across North America doing corporate events.
"The door has just cracked open for this," said Bodogh, who is also trying to incorporate motivational speaking into his appearances.
He and a few friends took up the sport before the internet was able to provide a unlimited supply of information, contacts and YouTube clips.
"It was trial and error for a lot of years," he said.
He tried BMX bike racing and mountain bike racing and was a top-ranked junior squash player before he gave it all up because he loved jumping his bike.
"I like doing these extreme feats that combine your body, mind and bike together to create this wow factor."
That wow factor doesn't come without a lot of hard work.
"You have to train your mind and your body as well. If you're riding your bike on platforms and you are very high in the air, you have to have the confidence to see yourself doing it and also be able to know where your limits are. You can also get into some sticky situations and you don't want to do that in front of 2,000 people."
He trains countless hours on his $3,500 bike, going over and on top off of obstacles, platforms and balance beams.
"You're on the back wheel of the bike a lot and it's technical bike handling. I try to train a lot harder than I ever have to ride."
It requires physical ability, athleticism, a strong mind and the ability to not back down.
"It's basically problem solving. You have to figure out your skill set and power and the best way to get up there."
Central in Bodogh's quest to be an extreme cyclist is his father Gerard Bodogh, who committed suicide in 2008.
"I think about him every minute and every full moon there is. I'm sure there's hundreds of other people out there going through the same thing and they don't know how to channel it into something more positive. I come out to train and I focus and think about my dad. It gets me down but it gets me up at the same time because I know he was so pumped for where I was going in life."
It was a challenge for him to overcome his father's death, which occurred in the middle of Bodogh's second-year college exams.
"It sort of derailed me for a little bit. He was gone and it made me refocus on a lot of things and look at how I can turn this into something else for other people that are maybe struggling with it. It's using my extreme (cycling) ability to gather people and talk about my experiences. That's a huge ambition of mine to work with the schools in Niagara and talk to some of the at-risk kids."
Talking about his father has been part of the healing process.
"It has me a lot more open to people when I'm taking about it. There's nothing to hide. It's the experience of life. There ups and downs, peaks and valleys and good and bad. You have to average it out and make positive things come from it."
The Standard Newspaper By Bernie PUCHALSKI Standard Staff
stcatharinesstandard.ca
Trevor wears Giro MTB helmet.
