Sombrio is the original, rider-owned, purveyor of world-leading design and manufactured high performance apparel, outerwear and subversive streetwear for the West Coast inspired.

Sombrio clothing was launched in 1998 by then 21 year-old professional mountain biker Dave Watson, an athlete and visionary who’s regarded as one of the pioneers of freeride mountain biking. Watson co-founded the company with friends Duanne Nickull, Gabe Fox, and childhood mentor, and mountain bike celebrity Andrew Shandro. Back then, the scene looked something like this: riders either wore full spandex or jeans, skate shoes and a full-face helmet and they hit big jumps to flat landings; bike parks hadn’t been invented; Monica Lewinsky was on her knees; the internet was about to change the world; and, choices for cool technical riding apparel and post-ride street-wear simply did not exist. “Time for a change,” said Watson boldly, who kept the throttle down as a rider while developing the Sombrio brand. Inspiration in the early years came from a combination of the West Coast lifestyle, innovative action sports such as skate and surf and the obvious gap of available apparel that suited both function (durability of the demands of the rough North Shore terrain) AND style (something you could be seen in on a ride and grabbing a coffee afterwards).

Watson’s Bio

Watson’s career on two wheels got off to a quick start when he landed on the podium at a UCI World Cup Downhill race in Hawaii at the age of 17. At the age of 25, after learning that downhill would not be part of the 2004 or 2008 Summer Olympic Games, Watson chose to pursue the ranks of Freeride: a new discipline of gravity-fueled riding that suited his big air style and all-mountain cadence. Early on Dave travelled the world, competing in big mountain and slopestyle contests and filming movie segments. During this time he anchored Sombrio’s brand with core mountain bikers, from downhill World Champions to bike park fiends and urban jibbers. Then, ranked fifth in the world in the world of Freeride (MTBA), Watson blew away the high mark with a stunt that would become famous in the action sports community all over the world, when he jumped his mountain bike over the peloton in the 2003 Tour De France.

The image photographed by Scott Markewitz and filmed by Freeride Entertainment would land Dave as Sports Personality of the Year in UK’s the Guardian Newspaper in addition to being published in Sports Illustrated and Rolling Stone magazine. This was an important step in Freeride’s history, as it helped springboard a virtually unknown yet progressive, youthful sport to the masses. The sport, that already had traction with super champions and now paired with new bike parks popping up in destination ski resorts like Whistler, B.C., and Portes de Soleil in France, suddenly exploded onto the scene with mainstream appeal.


Watson still rides through life from the cockpit of his mountain bikes and is entirely focused on the next chapter of his career as President and Brand Director of Sombrio. Today, Sombrio is the original, rider-owned, purveyor of world-leading design and manufactured high performance apparel, outerwear and subversive streetwear for the West Coast inspired.