Reggie Miller's hobby had unusual start

Reggie Miller has long been known for his basketball commentary for the now-TNT Sports, both on games and in the studio. But he has an unusual outdoor sports hobby he’s been involved in for even longer, dating back to his NBA playing career. That would be mountain biking.

Miller, 58, is set to compete in the  Life Time Tahoe Trail mountain biking race (covering 62.1 miles, with two laps around Lake Tahoe) this weekend. Ahead of that, he spoke to Liam McKeone for a Sports Illustrated piece , which also has him weighing in on the chances of TNT Sports and parent company Warner Bros. Discovery losing NBA rights, JJ Redick going from ESPN analyst to Los Angeles Lakers coach, and more.

But the most interesting part of that piece may be how Miller wound up mountain biking. He credits that to musician Tim Commerford and Commerford’s friends, famed surfer Laird Hamilton and documentary/podcast host Don Wildman. And that started during Miller’s Hall of Fame NBA playing career:

In 2000 I was getting ready to move to Malibu. I was going through a life transition. I was going through a divorce, I needed a new change. Fresh start. I lived in Hollywood, in the city, and I needed something fresh. My business manager said I should go to Malibu. She found the place I’m still at, 24 years later. As I was coming in, I was at a restaurant. A guy approached me and he was like, ‘Hey, you should go mountain biking with us.’ I had never mountain biked in my life. Everyone had bikes growing up as kids but I had never really gone on trails or anything like that.

That gentleman was Tim Commerford, bassist for Rage Against the Machine. He had heard my house was on this trail, one of the most famous trails in Malibu. His two friends just so happened to be Laird Hamilton and Don Wildman. Those dudes absolutely destroyed me. Mind you, I was still playing at the time. I was still active in the NBA. I was like, I’m in shape, they’re not going to outride me. And they destroyed me on this ride.

Going up and being on the trails and being lost, that’s what got me hooked initially on mountain biking. I couldn’t do it often because I was still playing and you didn’t want to get in a downhill accident, get your contract voided or anything. By the time I retired in ‘05 or ‘06, that’s when I picked it up a little bit more.

Since then, Miller has kept on with mountain biking, telling McKeone it helps him “continue that competitive balance.” And he’s been racing since he turned 50, saying the 50-plus class is “just as ruthless, just as competitive as the pros.” He tries to do six to 10 races a year and has done some big ones, including Steamboat Gravel the past two years. And he won his category in two races he entered earlier this year , in March at Vail Lake in Temecula. Here are some of Miller’s racing posts from his Instagram:

Still, Miller might not be quite as trick-oriented as Commerford. Here are some impressive backflips Commerford did in a 2014 video:

Now, Miller is set for this Life Time Tahoe race. And those going against him there should watch out. To McKeone, he compared the challenge here to some of the physical challenges he faced in basketball and said “You throw elbows when you’re in a little scrum when there are riders around. Friendly elbows, not the type of elbows Karl Malone would give me, but friendly elbows to carve out space.” It’s clear his competitive fire is still there. And this seems like a good, if unusual for an NBA analyst, way to feed that, and it’s fascinating to hear how that started.

[ Sports Illustrated ]

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