Dylan Tremblay did not come roaring back to mountain biking. He pedalled. Slowly. Carefully. With his seat high, tire pressure low and expectations even lower.
“I was away from riding for ten years. It’s just a slow kinda battle to get back on the bike,” Tremblay said.
Now 45 and living in a small town on Vancouver Island, Tremblay is riding again, filming again and finding an audience again. This time on his own terms. His YouTube channel blends vintage mountain bikes, modern trail rides, mental health honesty and a lifetime of stories from Canadian freeride’s early days.
It is funny, reflective and sometimes raw. And it is resonating.
Life after Drop In
For many riders, Tremblay is linked to Drop In, the early-2000s mountain bike TV series that defined freeride culture. He appeared across five seasons, beginning in his early 20s, living out of the bus and riding with cameras rolling.
“That was a really good time,” he said. “We were all pretty young, there was a lot of partying.”
But the lifestyle came with a cost.
“The hardest part was because it was so long, it was just hard to stay healthy and stay on your game,” Tremblay said. “Riding kind of became secondary.”
The show paid expenses but not salaries. When seasons ended, riders were often left scrambling.
“The season would end and basically they just kind of drop you off on the corner with all your stuff and it’d be like, now what do I do? My body is broken. I got no job. I got no money,” he said.
Eventually, Drop In faded. Tremblay’s life shifted toward family, home renovations and staying close to bikes without riding much at all.
A collector in the shadows
While riding faded into the background, collecting did not.
Tremblay began quietly building what has become one of Canada’s most extensive vintage mountain bike collections. More than 100 complete bikes, dozens of frames, hundreds of wheels and forks.
It started with nostalgia.
“The bike I had when I was 15 years old back in ’96,” he said. “It was a 1996 Rocky Mountain Blizzard.”
He found one on Craigslist for $100, sold the bike stand it came with and ended up with the bike for almost nothing.
“And that’s what started it,” he said.
Unlike collectors with deep pockets, Tremblay hunted patiently.
“I never had a lot of money to spend on bikes like some collectors, so for me it was just a lot of digging and being really patient,”…
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