A Life Less Ordinary

Juliet Elliott’s a Red Hook regular with a story to tell. Meet the former model and snowboard professional whose powers of persuasion match her pedalling prowess

- James Witts

“I RACED UP HERE ONCE,” says fixed-gear star Juliet Elliott of Park Street, Bristol, the 200m 10% ascent whose finish line is the neo-Gothic Wills Memorial Building. “It’s nice, Bristol. If I was to live somewhere less remote, I’d like to live here.” Elliott races everywhere. She’s a part-time athlete with a full-time race calendar, who also blogs, runs her own website, is a mountain-biking coach, writes and represents numerous high-profile brands.

Derbyshire-born Elliott’s in town for our Urban shoot and to talk about her ambitions for 2017 – a year in which she’ll head to Brooklyn (29 April), London (22 July), Barcelona (2 September) and Milan (14 October) for all four rounds of the fast, furious and fixed Red Hook series, in search of top-10 overall in the series [a feat achieved by Brit Keira McVitty in 2016, who finished a superb fourth].

“I’ll also race the Rad Race Fixed42,” Elliot adds, the unofficial fixed gear world championships in Berlin on 18 June. She’ll further satiate her competitive appetite with myriad of non-fixed cycling races. But that’s for another time (well, later in the feature) as there are more strings to Elliott’s bow than just racing. Elliott’s Instagram account verges on 26,000 – sizeable in the world of fixed gear – attracting the likes of Assos, Vans and Fox. Until this year, she also rode for Charge, the archetypal single speedsters.

In search of freedom