Recently I picked up the most recent issue of Dirt Rag.  Not even a page into the magazine I stopped dead in my tracks.  The inside cover flap has an advertisement for Santa Cruz Bicycles.   There is a two page spread of Mark Weir on his pump track in his backyard.  The upper left corner has this caption -

Most residents of nice neighborhoods where the houses all cost over a million dollars are quiet people who plant bulbs in their nice manicured backyards.  Mark Weir lives in one of those neighborhoods, but prefers pump tracks over Daffodils.  You could say he gets a little obsessive about his riding.  Dig.  Ride. Dig. Ride.  Repeat.

Did you read what stopped me so quickly?  Million dollar house and a mountain biker?  Now sure there could be other reasons he owns a million dollar home but it does leave me excited that there is a chance that mountain biking got him there!  In a time where sponsorship money is down, contracts for pro racers are slim and making a living means living out of your car, there is hope.

It might help that Mark Weir is also on the back cover of the same magazine in an ad for Hayes.