Cultivated Precision Patricia Druwen's Short But Steady Rise to Slopestyle Greatness
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.”
Druwen didn’t have access to an outdoor jump line, so she took her new Rose dirt jumper to the indoor skateparks near her house. It shaped her riding from the start.
“Patricia has a freestyle BMX style,” said Australian Harriet “Haz” Burbidge-Smith, an eight-time national champion BMX racer turned freerider. “She’s super comfy in a skatepark, and it shows in her amazing tech skills.”
Every day after school, Druwen honed her bike-handling on the hips and ramps at the skatepark. She learned bar spins first and before long she could land a 360. For inspiration, she watched videos of Fedko and Swedish slopestyle superstar Emil Johansson on the bike, motocross, and freestyle skiing. She took her bike on the train in search of new terrain and bigger jumps. She had found her passion.
“It’s creative and I can do whatever I want,” she said. “I feel super free on my bike.”
If there’s a pattern in Druwen’s career so far, it’s the sheer speed of her progression. Just one year after she bought her Rose dirt jumper, she received an invitation to the 2021 Audi Nines slopestyle competition in Birkenfeld, Germany. It was the first time in which women had been invited to compete at the Audi Nines, and Druwen found herself alongside eight other female heavy hitters, including New Zealander Robin Goomes, Canadian Casey Brown, and Australian Caroline Buchanan. The Nines organizers had built a playground of jump lines and features in the open pit of an abandoned uranium mine, and Druwen experienced the biggest jumps she’d ridden up to that point. If she was intimidated, she didn’t show it.
Goomes had the event’s standout moment, landing a massive backflip on the freeride line, but Druwen, then only 14, earned respect for her concentrated and precise riding. A photo from the event shows her doing a sui no-hander. Her style is razor-sharp, and her movements are exact. She holds her body perfectly balanced over the center of her bike. Her arms fully extend, straight and symmetric behind her.
“I’VE NEVER DONE SO MANY TRICKS ON SUCH BIG JUMPS. I T WAS SUCH A BIG DREAM FOR ME TO RIDE THE [JOYRIDE] COURSE. THE JUMPS ARE SO PERFECT.” —Patricia Druwen
“She takes the time to practice being precise,” said Brown, a seminal female freerider who has become a mentor to many young women riders. “A lot of young riders, they don’t necessarily have that focus. They just send and pray. She is a little bit different that way.”
Thanks to her countless hours of practice and preternatural talent, Druwen was able to translate what she’d learned in the skatepark to the more expansive terrain at the Nines, prompting her peers to encourage her to go even bigger. When Buchanan landed a front flip on the slopestyle line, she said, “You’re next, Patricia.”
The following year, Druwen again found herself in elevated company at the 2022 Red Bull District Ride, a two-day urban slopestyle event in the heart of Nuremberg, Germany. There she had the chance to ride on the same course as Fedko, who at that point had already helped her secure sponsorship from Rose Bikes. Her skatepark skills translated seamlessly to the features of the urban course, and her runs were smooth and stylish. In the best trick contest, she finished third behind Spaniard Gemma Corbera and New Zealander Ellie Chew, both of whom landed backflips—a trick Druwen was still trying to perfect.
“It took me a year to learn a backflip,” Druwen said. “It was so hard for me, and I don’t know why.”
Success in slopestyle comes from a mindset that embraces repetition and chases perfection. “The best slopestyle athletes in the world punish themselves hard with practice,” said Brown. “It’s not fun. They’re so hard on themselves.” Mastering even one of slopestyle’s intricate maneuvers can take many hours of practice. Though it took Druwen a year to learn a backflip, it has since become second nature to her. “Now that I’ve learned it, I can do it every jump,” she said. “It’s the easiest trick now for me.”
When she’s learning something new, Druwen watches video clips and practices in a foam pit. Sometimes, she’ll try a trick with an airbag. Then she goes for it. She seems to know when the time is right, and when Druwen describes her process, she makes it sound much simpler than it actually is.
“When I feel good, I do it,” she said. “I don’t think about it. I just do it.”
Just one year after her success at the Red Bull District Ride, Druwen experienced another watershed moment: the chance to ride the daunting course of Red Bull Joyride at Crankworx Whistler, shortly after being presented her Red Bull sponsorship helmet by Fedko, her inspiration from the start. Prior to 2023, Joyride had been a men’s-only event, but for the first time ever, women had the opportunity to ride a practice session on the Joyride course’s monumental jumps.
“It’s the biggest stage,” said freeride veteran Cam Zink, who has won both Joyride and Rampage twice. “It’s like the Olympics or the Super Bowl, and everyone is on their A-game.”
The size of the jumps and the length of the course presented a significant challenge. When the day finally arrived, windy conditions shortened the women’s practice session, but that didn’t matter to Druwen. She was enraptured by the experience.
“It’s such big jumps and super sketchy,” said Druwen. “I’ve never done so many tricks on such big jumps. It was such a big dream for me to ride the course. The jumps are so perfect.”
Both her peers and bike industry veterans were blown away by Druwen’s prowess on the Joyride course. “I was watching her learn the jumps,” said Darcy Wittenburg of Anthill Films, who was at the top of the course during the women’s session. “She was putting on a bit of a show, and watching her ride there was like, holy smokes. She’s so talented and so smooth.”
American freerider Kaia Jensen, known for hitting some of the biggest jumps and drops at the Rampage site near Virgin, Utah, found the Joyride course intimidating. Watching Druwen, she was struck by her quiet confidence. “I’m the one straight airing everything and being super stoked on it,” Jensen said with characteristic humor. “Then Patricia comes along and throws something silly. I’d see her like 50 feet down the course, doing something absolutely insane on her own. She does it, and she does it so much because she loves it.”
Just a few weeks after sessioning the Joyride course, Druwen arrived in Lenzerheide, Switzerland to shoot with Anthill Films for an upcoming movie. True to form, the same mix of passion and talent she’d exhibited in Whistler was on full display here. She swapped out her dirt jumper for a downhill bike and quickly learned to whip. When New Zealander Vinny Armstrong suggested that she try a tuck nohander on her big bike, Druwen nailed it perfectly on the first attempt. “She was just learning things in real time,” said Anthill’s Wittenburg.
Between takes, Druwen didn’t rest, opting instead to ride laps at the bike park in Lenzerheide. And in the evenings, she either cruised around the hotel on her BMX bike or took her e-bike out to the nearby trails.
“Any pro athlete has that obsession,” said Wittenburg. “But with her, there’s that other level of obsession where she’s just on her bike, all day, every day.”
By August 2023, when Druwen arrived at the Green Hill Bikepark near Schmallenberg, Germany for the Swatch Nines competition, she was ready to play. Not only did she land her world-first 540, but she also completed a backflip with a triple barspin—another world-first for women. “There aren’t too many men who can do that,” said Zink. To no one’s surprise, Druwen won the best trick award and the MVP prize for her performances at the Swatch Nines. At just 16 years old—and only three years after buying her first bike—Druwen had undeniably made her mark on women’s slopestyle. She’d shown a boundless capacity to learn at an exponential rate and was steadily transforming her potential into record-setting reality.
At the same time, the bike was opening up the world to her, and she’d come to love traveling to new places. In early 2024, she spent four weeks riding in New Zealand ahead of Crankworx Rotorua, where women would be competing in their first Diamond Level slopestyle contest. While in Queenstown, Druwen honed her skills at the legendary Gorge Road Jump Park, where she met Vinny Armstrong, who was impressed with her easy confidence. “She was just so casual about it,” said Armstrong. “It was like, ‘cool, I’ll just barspin behind you.’”
As the Crankworx Rotorua contest drew near, Druwen continued to progress, working on complex tricks such as a flip tuck nohander— which requires her to flip her bike, tuck her hips around the handlebar while squeezing the saddle with her legs and throwing her arms out to the sides, all while in the air. Though she’d previously tried the maneuver in Germany, she still hadn’t mastered it. But after 10 attempts on an airbag in New Zealand, Druwen had the sequence figured out. “I just did it and it was perfect,” she said. “Sometimes, it’s just the right moment.”
By the time she reached Rotorua, Druwen’s talent was hardly a secret, and she drew plenty of eyes during practice. While it could be easy to crack under the weight of expectations, Druwen said the only pressure she felt came from herself and her own drive for perfection.
“What if I don’t do my run the way I would like, what then? Then I am mad at myself,” she said. “I’m not happy with me when I don’t do the run that I want.”
On the slopestyle course at Rotorua, pressure hung heavy in the air. Five women, including Druwen, had been invited to compete at the first-ever women’s Diamond Level event, and the jumps were big and consequential. A complete run would require the landing of nine or 10 tricks, and the world was watching.
“It’s the biggest event in the world for slopestyle riders,” Druwen said. “Now women can also ride it, which I think is really cool.”
Though Druwen managed two practice sessions on the Rotorua course, an ongoing sinus infection sapped her energy, and she took a heavy slam, injuring her abdominal muscles. “I did a flip tuck and didn’t have the energy to land it,” she said. “I’m so mad, I only had two sessions there. The course is insane.”
The show went on without her, and Robin Goomes became the first woman to win a Diamond Level slopestyle competition. The performances of all the women were impressive, resonating with the likes of phenomenal big mountain rider Hannah Bergemann.
“The slopestyle event at Crankworx Rotorua is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen,” said Bergemann. “It took so long for them to get into that space, and they just completely smashed it.”
Bergemann is particularly impressed with Druwen’s talent and thinks she has the potential to stay at slopestyle’s highest level for a long time to come.
“She makes these tricks that are insanely technical look easy. Like, effortless,” said Bergemann. “She does tricks I’ve never seen other women do, and she does it in a way that makes it look casual.”
With Diamond Level slopestyle contests still ahead at Crankworx in Cairns, Australia and Joyride in Whistler, Druwen sought to shake off the effects of her injury, attending the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center outside Salzburg, Austria. She underwent strength training for the muscles in her back, legs, and arms, along with a host of other reaction-time drills that even included juggling.
By the time she arrived in Australia for Crankworx Cairns in May 2024, she was prepared to compete in the Diamond Level slopestyle contest, but a resurgence of her ongoing sinus infection sidelined her again and she withdrew just ahead of the competition. Due to the persistence of the infection and its resistance to antibiotics, at the time this issue went to press she and her family were considering surgery to resolve the issue.
Regardless of how Druwen’s 2024 competitive season pans out, there is little doubt that she will remain an influential force in women’s slopestyle due to her talent and love for the sport. When Druwen climbs on her bike, life’s complications fall away. There’s freedom in the air, and she has mastered the magical art of reaching out and seizing it. Each jump is a blank canvas for her to fill, and the bike is her tool for self-expression. As she hits the lip, she hurdles through the air, throws her bike into a flip, and gives her bars one spin and then another. With each flying leap and clean landing, Druwen shows us who she is.
