- November 21, 2024
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Austin Buchwald-Arnett and Kelly Jones are both sponsored by USWE, a Swedish company that makes bounce-free hydration packs and a line of performance clothing. Photo by Michele Meyers
Austin Buchwald-Arnett attacks one of the downhills at the Graham Swamp Mountain Bike Trail. Photo by Michele Meyers
Cross-country Mountain Bike National Champion Kelly Jones flies downhill at the Graham Swamp Mountain Bike Trail. Photo by Michele Meyers
Austin Buchwald-Arnett and Kelly Jones ride the trails at at the Graham Swamp Mountain Bike Trail in Palm Coast. Photo by Michele Meyers
Austin Buchwald-Arnett and Kelly Jones take a breather at the Graham Swamp Mountain Bike Trail in Palm Coast. Photo by Michele Meyers
Kelly Jones (left) and Austin Buchwald-Arnett store an arsenal of bikes in their garage when they are not training for or competing in a race. Photo by Michele Meyers
A few of Kelly Jones' and Austin Buchwald-Arnett's racing numbers adorn their garage wall. Photo by Michele Meyers
Kelly Jones holds up her USA Cycling chmpionship kit in her indoor cycling room. Photo by Michele Meyers
Kelly Jones and Austin Buchwald-Arnett met on a podium in March 2021 at the Graham Swamp 360 six-hour mountain bike race.
They were on different teams, but each won the award for having the fastest lap for a female and male rider, respectively. One month later, they met to ride the Grapefruit Bike Trails in Palm Bay, and one month after that, they were in Bentonville, Arkansas, racing in the Rule of Three — 20 miles of single track, 50 miles of gravel biking and 20 miles on the road.
“Within two months, we got on a plane together and went to Bentonville,” Jones said. “I guess that’s probably what really solidified the official start of the relationship.”
Next month, they will fly to Switzerland to compete as a team in the SPAR Swiss Epic — a grueling five-day, five-stage mountain bike race through the Swiss Alps. The race is part of the Epic Global Mountain Bike series.
“I’m excited for the race,” Jones said. “I am so excited to go to Switzerland. This was like a dream destination. Absolutely, absolutely dream. Then I think we have three days, after the race finishes, to do a little bit of sightseeing.”
Buchwald-Arnett said biking has fed his passion for travel.
“That's a great thing about the bike too,” he said. “So many destinations that you wouldn’t think that you would go to, and then the bike brings you there. The cherry on top is you get to explore by bike, which not many people get to do. ... Exploring by bike is one of my favorite things in the world, because you can cover so much more ground than hiking.”
The couple got an early entry into the race after Jones raced Cape Epic, the Untamed African MTB Stage Race held in South Africa. It was an eight-day, 402-mile race with a climb of 50,777 feet. Three days into the race, Jones was put on an IV and pulled from the event, following her teammate, who had an early exit on day one.
Even though the race did not go well, Jones reached out to the Swedish company USWE to ask if the company would be interested in collaborating. USWE sells bounce-free hydration packs and recently came out with a line of performance clothing.
Jones offered to provide social media content in exchange for the company’s support getting the couple to the race, and the race itself. The company agreed to sponsor them. The alliance made the Switzerland trip possible, covering the $4,000 entry fee and two roundtrip tickets to Switzerland.
That's a great thing about the bike too. So many destinations that you wouldn’t think that you would go to, and then the bike brings you there. The cherry on top is you get to explore by bike, which not many people get to do. ... Exploring by bike is one of my favorite things in the world, because you can cover so much more ground than hiking."
— AUSTIN BUCHWALD-ARNETT, mountainbiker, content creator
The two will be posting content for USWE on their Instagram and YouTube accounts, @KellyJonesMTB. Jones is the face of their channel, and Buchwald-Arnett is the creative behind the scenes.
Before pursuing biking, he went to Daytona State College to study photography after falling in love with the art form during a trip to San Francisco with his grandmother at age 15.
“I still want to race, test myself and see how hard I can go,” he said. “But I get more satisfaction out of interactions with people who’ve watched the YouTube videos. Even though I'm not the face of it, Kelly is moreso the face, but we are a deal now. It’s getting more people on bikes and spreading the stoke of riding bikes. It’s having people excited when they see our videos and creating something. Not only that, the beautiful thing with photos and videos is, it’s capturing a piece of time.”
On August 15, the pair will start the Swiss Epic race in the resort town of Lenzerheide, Switzerland. The course is 228 miles, including over seven miles of climbing in mountainous terrain. Both team members must ride simultaneously.
Neither are daunted by the difference in training conditions between their home state and the Alps. Florida offers extreme weather conditions unique to the southernmost states, but also vast expanses of flat roads, with limited climbs and downhill recovery. Graham Swamp’s 7-mile course offers “punchy, steep, difficult climbs” with downhills that last a few seconds, making it one of the best places to train.
“In Florida, you pedal — it’s flat,” Jones said. “You don’t get to go down, so you don’t stop pedaling. That translates very, very well (for training). When you go to mountains, you might climb for an hour, but you come down for 30 minutes, and Floridians are fresh as a daisy when they have a downhill for that long. Like, that’s insane.”
Both Jones and Buchwald-Arnett are professional cyclists and comfortable with racing. They both were exposed to competition as children. Jones was raised in Biddulph, England, with mom Trudie Jones racing Mini Coopers and brother Chris Jones riding motocross; Ohioan Buchwald-Arnett watched “The Office” while his uncle rode his indoor bike to train for Cat 2 road bike racing.
In 2018, Jones started racing in the Florida State Championship Series in mountain biking, and winning. She is the 2023 eSports national champion and the 2021 and 2022 eMTB state champion.
Buchwald-Arnett also had a natural talent for speed. In 2019, he finished second in his first mountain bike race for the Florida State Championship Series, then finished second in his second race and first in his third race.
Eventually, Jones would like to start coaching and organizing women’s rides.
“I would like to start, in the next year, moving a little bit more towards coaching and women’s rides,” she said. “People have asked me to do a podcast. But we’re in the middle of building out a van right now. And when that’s done, we have quite a few ideas of what we’d like to do, and it involves a lot of traveling and a lot of racing for me, Austin and the dogs.”
