Junior Nick Hahn rides his bike to campus.

He works at a bike shop, The Two Wheeler Dealer.

He helped construct a (now closed) skating and biking park.

On his summer vacations, he travels to New York and takes off down mountains and rides off a ramp and soars, at times, 20 feet in the air.Guess what his pastime is?

“You just ride around downtown and around campus a little bit,” Hahn said. “But around here in the winter, I go to trails in Castle Hayne. Rolling off an old pickup truck, a platform, dropping and doing a few jumps.”

Those are some heavy-duty jumps he sometimes undertakes. But a biking enthusiast since his late middle school years, Hahn’s downshifted his activities since he arrived on campus, but he’s been known to have some acrobatic flair up his sleeve, including, in the past, a habit of jumping his bike onto school benches. Something he disavows now.

“(I think) they don’t think too highly of it,” said Hahn, downplaying the practice. “I take my studs off, I don’t try to vandalize any property when I do it. More or less, when I want to do that there’s some places I’ll ride at around town or Castle Hayne.”

Hahn tries to be careful, especially when he goes to Castle Hayne, builds up speed, takes up a dirt ramp built onto a truck and takes to the air.

“Basically, definitely wear a helmet and knee pads, gloves — stuff like that,” Hahn said. “I’m riding vert ramps and stuff like that. Your typical vert ramp is 11 feet tall, if you fall it’s going to hurt. You want to keep your injuries to a minimum so you want to wear elbow pads, kneepads, a full-face helmet.”

Hahn knows what can happen when something goes wrong in the air.

“When I first started riding I took a pretty heavy fall,” Hahn said. “I got severe head trauma, broke my collar bone, it was almost a compound fracture and road rash and I didn’t know who I was until the next day. It was an interesting one from what I hear, because I don’t remember it. But it’s part of the game.”

So why did he get back on his bike?

“It’s something that you love doing. You’re not going to stop,” he said. “Maybe there’s more motivation to conquering your fears. Trying to move on, beyond.

“(I)f I get on my bike I’ll get back. Otherwise it will be a mental block and you’ll be (away from the bike) for a while. There will be a bit of hesitation and you’ll fall again and … it’s definitely interesting to get back from that. Just figuring things out from a new perspective.”