At the beginning of this year, I posted a reel of me freaking out before a trail feature with the sole purpose of being vulnerable and drawing attention to the fact that everyone gets scared sometimes. Within hours, I had thousands of internet trolls telling me that, as a woman, I shouldn’t ride bikes, and…
Tag: mtb
Party Laps Forever
Three weeks before the start of Trans New England, all of my best laid plans blew up. The UCI changed the date of the XCM World Championship from the previously published Saturday, September 21st to Sunday, September 22nd–a minor change, unless, of course, you were planning to drive from West Virginia to New Hampshire for…
A dream come true
It isn’t very often that a world championship event is held on home soil, or, even more specifically, on one’s home trails, but that is exactly what happened last weekend as the 2024 UCI Cross Country Marathon (XCM) World Championships took place at Snowshoe, West Virginia. The course was 68 miles of backcountry goodness, trails…
Level Up
The 2023 USA Enduro National Championship at Ride Rock Creek was my second enduro race ever. I had just gotten stitches out of my knee (for the second time last summer), and the wet conditions made a slip-n-slide out of the backcountry stages. I was terrified, but I was also hooked. Coming into the Enduro…
Pretty girls [bike] like this
Women in mountain biking have found what I think is a beautiful sweet spot of competing not against each other, but with each other.
BCBR: Singletrack Summer Camp
How to even begin? BC Bike Race is more than a race. It really feels like an experience…a celebration even, of mountain biking and the community around it. I just got home, less than 24 hours ago, and I already want to go back. To preface, I flew out to BC Bike Race this year…
Teamwork makes the dream work
I race as a privateer, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t have a team making it possible for me to chase this dream of racing bikes. From the many friends and neighbors who volunteer to take care of Kweli to the organizations (and individuals) supporting me financially and through gear, the network supporting me…
Partiu! Partiu!
The 2024 XCM (Cross Country Marathon) MTB Pan-American Championships took place in Goianá, Minas Gerais, Brazil this past weekend. After racing in Colombia last year, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect as far as checking into the event, the pre-race team manager meeting, and the race itself. Myself, Mark Kransz, and…
Made for the Elements
When its day three of racing in pouring rain, driving wind, and garbage conditions, and you’re still grinning from ear to ear, either something is really wrong with you, or you know you’re doing exactly what you’re made for. This was the realization I came to in the middle of stage three of this year’s…
Three for Three in Tennessee
This year, for the annual Tennessee National event at Windrock Bike Park, in Oliver Springs, Tennessee, I opted to race three separate events over the two weekends: Enduro, XCC (Short Track), and XCO (Cross-Country Olympic). Though I didn’t originally intend for these to be the first races of the season, that’s how it worked out….