While compiling our list of America’s national champions for our August issue of MBA, we came upon this photo of the rider who won America’s National Cross-country title in 2001, Kirk Molday.
After winning the title that year, Kirk pretty much disappeared from the mountain bike racing scene.
While many of the riders who become national champions end up with long careers in the mountain bike industry, Kirk walked away from racing and pursued a different career path.
We did some internet searches and found out that Kirk Monday became a successful landscape architect in Southern California.
We found the phone number of his business and called him on the phone. He answered the phone himself.
We told him who we were and why we were calling, and we talked with him for a few minutes.
After winning the Men’s XC title in 2001, Kirk told us, “I worked for a pool contractor for a while.” After that he started his own business as a landscape designer and builder. “It’s fun. I enjoy it,” he told us.
He told us he works mainly on “residential stuff—a lot of pools, front-yard and backyard.” We checked out his website and were able to see some of the elaborate work he’s done with swimming pools, patios, gardens, and lawns that he’s created in Southern California.
Kirk told us he still rides bikes today, mostly gravel bikes, and he rides about three times a week.
Molday told us he’s 53 years old now, which would mean that he was probably 28 years old in the above picture of him, that MBA photographer John Ker shot of Kirk racing in 2001, the year Molday won America’s Pro Men’s XC National Championship.
Here are some pictures that Kirk Molday shared on his Instagram page, showing some of the landscape design work he has been doing:
Here’s an article we did about Kirk’s retirement from racing in August of 2002:
Here’s an even more impressive selection of photos of Kirk Molday’s landscape architecture work: