Each time Patricia Druwen falls, she gets back up. There’s blood on the palm of her hand, and tan dust coats her long-sleeved white shirt. She’s trying to complete her first 540, a trick that requires her to spin her bike around in the air one-and-a-half times. Riding at full speed, she hits the steep, hard-packed dirt surface of the jump. As she launches in the air, Druwen looks left, turning her head until her rear wheel comes into view. Almost by magic, her bike spins through the air. The red hair of her ponytail gleams in the sun.

She hits the ground, crashing and rolling in the dust. She’s fallen short, again. Standing up, Druwen looks at the jump and then at her bleeding hand. She gathers her energy and climbs on her bike once more. This time, Druwen hits the jump higher and starts to spin a half-breath earlier. Weightless, she flies through the full 540-degree rotation before landing squarely on both wheels. This time, she makes it. Her 540 is a world first for women’s mountain biking. Relaxed and unassuming, she flashes a quick smile.

In the four short years since she bought her first bike, Druwen has become one of the best women in the world at the demanding discipline of slopestyle mountain biking. Already, she can land tricks no other woman in the sport can do. Passionate and obsessed, she does wild and beautiful things on a bicycle with a casual attitude that’s confounding. That’s a pretty mind-blowing accomplishment for a girl who’s just 17 years old.

Druwen’s hometown of Bergisch Gladbach in Germany is not known for its mountain biking and growing up, she did a variety of other sports. Of these, she stuck with gymnastics the longest. The hours she spent on the trampoline doing flips and twists helped her develop an acute sense of air awareness.

“I was in the air every day,” she said. “Now when I do flips, I see everything.”

Like many people, Druwen began mountain biking during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. Her father bought her a Decathlon Rockrider mountain bike, and she rode the forested trails near her house. From the start, Druwen wanted to do tricks and she readily transferred her skills from gymnastics to the bike.

“I tried to do some jumps in the forest and some tricks on the street,” she said. It took her about four weeks to become frustrated by the limits the Rockrider imposed. Inspired by video clips she’d seen of German slopestyle standout Erik Fedko, she began to save her money for a dirt-jump bike.

“Erik was riding for Rose Bikes, and he was my idol,” she said. “I wanted his bike.”