It gives us great pleasure to announce that we are supporting Jai Motherwell. Jai is one of a few riders we are supporting and will be announcing over the next few weeks. Welcome Jai!

Jai's an Aussie born QT local, big air specialist and all round GC. His style and creativity both on the bike and digging trails get us fired up to ride. And he epitomises what Airdrop is all about #sessionsnotseconds . We couldn't be more stoked to have him repping our bikes.

Check out his Queenstown Raw Video, courtesy of Zoe Bosquillon

Jai Motherwell Q&A

In the interest of getting to know what makes Jai tick, we asked him a few questions.

Who is Jai Motherwell?

I'm 30, and short af, 171cm or 5’7. My current job is excavator operator with a pinch of trail building. I grew up in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia.

How did you find bikes?

I got into riding early, and just never stopped when the training wheels came off. Asked mum “did I get air that time?!” At a friend’s 5th or 6th birthday party and I was hooked!

VB Or Double Brown?

VB all the way, gotta be ice cold though.

What was the riding like growing up?

We had a couple of really cool local DH/berm and jump tracks that we used to build. But used to travel a lot for racing too. The local older kids had downhill bikes and were building the sickest drops and jumps. That lit the fire.

So you started out Racing?

I picked up a bike as a young kid, digging and riding sketchy stuff in the woods but began racing at 13 and was surprisingly good at it (was never any good at balls sports, so it was nice to find my place!). I raced for years and at my peak, was a top 10 junior in Aus but always preferred mucking around and riding jumps.

Haha, so you've gone full circle now?

Yeah I found the party scene for a little while, almost stopped riding, then found the love again. 

You currently call Queenstown home?

Yeah I’ve been living in Queenstown, NZ for the past 4 and a half years.

Knew I always preferred throwing the weight around of a big bike on jumps, so finally pulled the pin and moved to Queenstown so I could ride Dream Track. Never looked back!

How do you manage the whole riding/work/life balance?

I’m still figuring out how to manage my work-ride balance. I recently left my trail building work so that I could work as a contractor. Being able to make a little more money and choose my own hours. Also helped motivate me to dig in my free time again.

Why Airdrop?

I actually bought a Slacker before riding for Airdrop was on the table. For me riding big jumps, durability was at the top of the priority list, a lot of other bikes seemed much more race focussed which doesnt really work for me.

After spending the season on the bike and an opportunity came up to join the team, Im over the moon!

Looks like you're running 26 wheels, whats that about?

I ride 26" wheels because, as I said earlier, I’m short af. I’m also not out there to be the fastest guy on the hill. I was so resistant to moving to 27.5 and when I did, the bikes had also started getting bigger. I never really felt properly comfortable on the bigger wheels. So when I started building my dream bike, I decided to go for something smaller and more playful to suit my size and style.

Any setup secrets?

An S1 Slacker frame, 150mm cranks and narrow bars are the secret. Just compact that rig!

Do you have to change your setup for the big stuff like dream?

I run Maxxis Ardent Race tyres for jumps, they’re a more aggressive cross country/slopestyle tyre. On top of this, I have two completely different suspension setups written in my phone. One for park and one for jumps. About as close to having two different bikes as poss, without having different bikes haha.

What does an average ride day look like?

An average day on the bike for me is generally rocking up late with a coffee in my hand. Really depends on the day though! In summer, Wednesday nights are always banger dream track sessions. The bike park’s open till 7pm every day too, so will generally get a couple laps in, mixing between the tech trails and flogging the main lines. About twice a month, I’ll chuck the head phones in and go for a solo trail ride. I also get out to Gorge every now and then to mix it up on the dirt jumper or Bmx.

Any new spots you want to hit up?

I’m pretty keen to do a bit more back country free riding this year. The amount of riding and variety we have in Queenstown is mind blowing.

Guessing you have a pretty good local crew?

We have a solid crew that are always up dream, but every year that changes with people coming and going. We all have our different strengths and styles. So it’s real cool to push each other to do something we’ve wanted to do, when you see someone do something they’ve wanted to do, its pretty sick.

Whats the process for testing new features? Feel or Science?

When building and testing big jumps there’s a lot that has been tried and tested in the past, so we have a good baseline to go off. But feel does come into it a bit too. However, I’ve recently started dipping my toes into big mountain freeride and drops and that’s all super unknown to me!

Any big Injuries?

I had a pretty bad run of injuries for quite a few years. The two worst were a downhill crash that punctured my lung, ruptured my spleen and kidney, along with a few broken ribs. Another was warming up at the skatepark and putting my foot down awkwardly, dislocating all my metatarsals. This was by far the most painful and took me years to recover from! But we survive and keep chugging along!

Whats the process for learning new tricks?

With learning new tricks I’ll generally find a video and watch the frame by frame, thinking about every little body movement required. I’ll play the trick over and over in my head until it makes sense. Most tricks I can start with a small extension, so I’ll learn them on dream because there’s more air time and I’m able to take my time with it. But if it’s something that requires proper commitment, I’d try it to water/airbag/foam or something first. Just to make sure I know what I’m doing before committing to a landing.

Any trick your working on?

I would love to work on my super seaters to gain full extension and do it in a flip or spin. But I’ve also wanted to cork 7 and double flip the dh bike for a long time. Just need a safe facility to work out the kinks first.

The shoebox to no-foot can was sick, and something you don't really see in MTB, did that come easy?

With that shoebox to nofoot can I can’t really remember how many tries it took to be honest, everything in the video was stuff that I already had in the trick bag. Just remember messing around with Shoebox combo's one day and the no foot can came out. Have a couple more of those combo's that I might have to bring out for the next one haha.

Do you draw inspiration from other sports?

I think I actually have such bad tunnel vision and only really pay attention to bikes for inspiration. I’ve definitely seen some people do some pretty damn cool things in the sports but I don’t think it’s ever really influenced me too much. Other than cool FMX tricks of course!

Any favourite riders?

Some of my favourite riders would have to be the locals in Queenstown. They’re so good and excel in different aspects that it’s real cool for progression. However I love watching Jaxon Riddle and Andreu Lacondeguy rip it up!

Where would you like to see MTB go over the next few years?

I'd love to see the MTB scene bring back 26” downhill/freeride bikes! I’m really hopeful that it’s heading in a good direction. Many different disciplines of the sport and plenty of riding about. But my judgment may be clouded as I live in a bike park and I just see mountain bikers day in day out. Seems like the most popular sport in the world over here.

Whats the future look like for Jai?

As for the future, that's a tough one! My goals and desires change pretty often. I really just enjoy riding my bike and I love learning new things. Planning to head to Utah later this year, to check out Rampage and do a wee riding trip. Next year I’d like to head over to Europe and do as many big air events as I can.