Mountain biking helped turn my life around

Inner city growing up is never easy. And when all your mates are out smoking dope and drinking, it's near on impossible to break away from the crowd.

But when one night's innocent chit chat on a street corner in Manchester turned into a riot and left Steven Ball facing prison, he knew it was time to break away.

Here the 21 year old tells how mountain biking has been the hobby he needed to make new friends and break the cycle of drink and drugs.

"It had got to the stage when my mum was expecting me to get arrested; that at any time there would be a phone call from the police saying that I was in big trouble.

"It was when I was half way through year 10 when I went off the rails. I was about 14 and it was just because I was hanging round with the wrong people. You just did the same things as your mates.

"The norm would be to go round to people's houses and watch telly or hanging out in the streets. I'd gone to Monton Green primary school and was at Moor Side in Swinton.

"We would just smoke a load of weed. That's all we did. Mum knows about it now but she didn't at the time. What they do say to me now though is that they were constantly expecting a phone call. Every week someone would be getting arrested. There would always be a fight or someone getting caught.

"One day at school, one of my mates got arrested outside school with £1,000 worth of weed on him. School wasn't about study for us."

"I'd save up the money from my paper round to buy more drugs"

"At that time, I was smoking about £60 worth at the weekends between a small group of us. During the week, I'd just save up the money I got from a paper round to buy more.

"I was arrested at the beginning of 2003. There was this one night when we had all gathered outside a pub in Swinton and around this open presinct. People were surrounding the pub so the police turned up. They told us to move on but the lads I was with, fancied themselves as bad lads and started giving the police abuse.

"It's all a blur but they called for back up and moved us across the road. A scuffle broke out and then bottles got thrown. In the end it was more like a riot and I was chared with violent disorder.

"For a while, I totally didn't understand what was going on. My dad turned up. He wasn't mad he was just so disappointed. Eleven people were arrested and charged.

"The case first went through Salford magistrates court and then Manchester Crown Court. The trial lasted three weeks and we had to be there every day. I was aquitted and the judge agreed that there was no evidence to link me and that I shouldn't have a record.

"It was a close shave and was enough to make me realise it was time to change my life. Dad had been such a rock and he had come with me every day to court, and even had to take loads of time off work.

"Now I am training to be a strucural engineer and am a trainee building scientist.

"I started mountain biking a year after I'd got arrested in 2004. My first bike was a trails bike. I got it just for messing about on the streets with.

"Then I met some friends through riding at Rivington and through my work. I love the pigeon tower ride and around the Howgills as well as Jacob's Ladder.

"Mountain biking is totally tops"

"Mountain biking is a pure buzz. It's just such good fun and you make great mates, better than anyone I ever knew with drugs.

"I would totally say to other young people not to be put off by the image that it is uncool to be out on a bike. That is just so not true. Cost is not a big problem. It doesn't have to be expensive and you get so much out of it. You have so much more confidence in your ability and have to develop determination."

It's so much more fun than drugs and watching telly