The song “Pretty Girls Walk” by Big Boss Vette has been stuck in my head since leaving the Take Aim Women’s Takeover at Bryce Bike Park yesterday evening. Unlike my typical weekends, which are either filled with long training rides or the pressure and stress of racing, this was a weekend full of learning, laughter, and relaxation.

My decision to even attend the Women’s Takeover instead of racing the Wilderness 101 was an intentional step away from the race-only mindset that I’ve had in recent years, and a step towards my increasing sense of wanting to be a voice of some sort for women in mountain biking (and sport in general).

Let’s rewind a bit.

In January, shortly after subluxating my shoulder for the first time, I went to Ride Rock Creek with the Roanoke Star Cycling Downhill Team for a mini-team camp. As we were working our way down Stampede, sessioning each feature, I came up on a drop-to-berm feature and panicked. It wasn’t that I couldn’t ride it, just that something in my brain flipped. Looking back on it, I realize that I went into that weekend under a lot of stress already: the shoulder injury, my final semester of grad school, relational stresses, and the pressure I put on myself to continually perform/improve. Tackling the hardest trail at Ride Rock Creek while injured and over-stressed was really just opening the door for anxiety to rear its ugly head.

It’s worth a shout-out to the other RSC DH coaches who were there (Matt, Dan, Brian) for being incredibly understanding and kind. In that moment, hyperventilating, crying, and completely frozen with terror, they didn’t shame me or even try to coax me into riding that feature. Instead, they encouraged me to take the rest of the trail at my own pace–which I did. Though I was still shaky by time we worked our way down the rest of the trail, I rode the remaining features on the trail, and continued riding the rest of the day.

Afterwards, I shared a video clip of my ~15 seconds of terror, in the hopes that it would let others see that the fear of learning new things is real–and that its ok. It’s not the first time that I’ve shared how overcoming fear is a very real part of my progression as a mountain biker. Three years ago, it was hopping over logs across the trail that terrified me (real talk: there are still logs I refuse to hop because the consequences feel too high). Two years ago, it was drops. In January, it was linking bigger drops with other trail features.

For whatever reason, the hate-algorithm found my post and it went viral. Within hours, there were thousands of comments: “sell your bike,” “take up knitting,” “this is why girls shouldn’t ride bikes,” “go back to the kitchen,” “just end it,” etc. Over six months later, I am still getting comments daily that tell me there’s no way I could possibly be an elite mountain biker and that the commenter was riding better than me when they were three on a strider bike (or some variation of that theme). A few things stand out to me from this experience: (a) hate attracts hate; it’s my (our) responsibility to be an agent of grace & kindness in the face of it; (b) I don’t ride bikes or chase progression in my riding for the haters or to “prove” something; I do it for me, because I want to get better/faster/stronger; (c) this attitude towards women riding bikes is shockingly common and I cannot sit and be silent. [As a side note: all of the guys I actually know in person and ride with are incredibly supportive and positive advocates for women riding–the internet just amplifies those who are the loudest, which is usually the haters].

Clearly, the commenters have been unsuccessful in their campaign to get me to hang up my bikes. I hate feeling scared, and the fact that I let fear win that one day in January was motivation for me to double down on my efforts to build the skills and repetition necessary to manage my anxiety and approach challenging trail features with confidence. I also started being more intentional in seeking out other women to ride with.

Fast forward to the Women’s Takeover.

When I heard that there was an entire weekend dedicated to women, complete with skills clinics taught by and for women and a mini-enduro race, I knew I had to make an effort to be there.

I joined a group of rad women from the Roanoke Valley Riveters (a women’s mountain bike group here in Roanoke) to camp at the Takeover, and signed up for the Friday evening backcountry shuttle, an Intermediate Jumps Clinic for Saturday morning and an Advanced Jumps Clinic for Sunday morning (being quite unsure about whether I was even ready for advanced jumps, but hoping to level up). And of course the women’s Downduro race on Sunday afternoon. 🙂

The weekend was soul-filling.

I absolutely loved camping with the Riveters, sharing food, swimming in the lake, and so much laughter.

The skills clinics were SO good. I’ve said before how I believe in the value of backing up, refreshing the fundamentals, and the progressing forward, and this is exactly what I was able to do this weekend. By slowing down, focusing on specific movements, and making small adjustments/corrections, the coaches helped me (and the other women in the clinics) to make huge steps in our jumping progression.

Perhaps the best part of the weekend for me was the opportunity to just ride with other rad women. The timing of Jenny Rissveds’ incredible sportswomanship in communicating Haley Batten’s puncture to the U.S. tech team during the women XCO Olympic race and celebrating Pauline Ferrand-Prévot’s win really highlighted how women in mountain biking have found what I think is a beautiful sweet spot of competing not against each other, but with each other. I loved getting to see junior shredder Brecklyn start trying new tricks in the air, being led into the Gopher Drop for the first time by a train of women, and doing party lap after party lap with various groups of ladies.

In short, a weekend away from racing to just chill, celebrate women in mountain biking, and have fun riding bikes was exactly what I needed–and I’m so grateful to Lynn, Phoebe, Harlan, and all the sponsors who made the Women’s Takeover possible. Thank you!