I can still close my eyes and visualize the scene surrounding me as I confronted one of the most challenging realities of my life. Trauma, I’ve noticed, doesn’t leave—even years later.

It was a late April morning and already warm enough for short sleeves in the mountains behind Santa Barbara, California. Mornings are my time to ride, and this road trip was no exception. I enjoy the solitude of getting out on the trail early, and I often climb as the sun rises. It is my time to think and clear my head. Sometimes, it’s also when I wrestle with my past.

By 8 a.m., I was pushing my bike up an old dirt road and realizing California riding was no joke. The doubletrack took a hard right, but to my left was a stunning view of the valley my family and I called “home” for the weekend. I could see rows of RVs leading up to the trees, then only glimpses of these traveling homes speckled in the oak trees.

Clouds blanketed the ocean far off to the west. The nearly hour-long climb that morning had prepared me to come to grips with what my family had just left. I was finally able to say the words, even if just to myself: For the past 15 years, I had been in a cult.

I’d only found mountain biking again after the collapse of this high-control church, which culminated with the ousting of its malicious leader. For several months, I watched a manipulative and dishonest man grasp at any strand of the control he once had until the truth of his actions were finally exposed, and all of our eyes were opened to the monster he is.

I didn’t return to mountain biking as a means of therapy. Therapy found me through mountain biking. Each ride, early in the morning, I came to grips with what my adult life had been up to that point: hurt, manipulation, control, and the harrowing realization that even worse had been inflicted on female members of the church. 

The more I rode, the more I processed. And things seemed to get better.

Over time, I came to realize I wasn’t the only one healing from trauma through mountain biking. And while each rider’s experience is distinctly their own, I connected instantly with stories from others. In some cases, I felt as if they could’ve been sharing my experience. Why, I began to wonder, as my curiosity grew, does pedaling a bike off-road seem to be such a potent method for confronting and moving through personal struggles?

Ravi Almeter is a therapist in Oregon, where he works with a variety of clients, including those dealing with trauma. He doesn’t specialize in sports counseling or therapy, but he is an advocate for physical activity as a means of healing. Almeter, a cyclist himself, sees many benefits of mountain biking from a therapeutic perspective.

“Mountain biking checks so many boxes,” he told me. “It’s exercise, it’s quiet, it’s in the woods. Maybe you’re thinking, or maybe not. Maybe it is a ride with a buddy, and you can talk, but it is passive talk.”

The term “passive talk,” Almeter says, refers to conversations that take place in a casual setting where those involved can feel comfortable letting their guard down because they’re focused on another activity or process. Mountain biking with a friend or in a group can be a perfect setting for passive talk to occur. In fact, our sport seems almost tailor-made for fostering these situations organically. We chat on fire road climbs to pass the time, lingering on the subject of, say, tire choice before veering off to talk about family or work or whatever else is happening in our lives. Mountain biking is just the reason for being there in the first place. Conversation follows.

Almeter notes several other things that can be beneficial about mountain biking. These different aspects become adaptable to the individual rider— one person may pedal to get away from intrusive thoughts, and another may need the space to dig deeper into their psyche.

“It depends on the person and what they need to be challenged to do,” Almeter said. “Say it is social anxiety. Doing an activity like mountain biking is a much easier way [to be social].”

Being told to “be social” may be impossible homework for someone suffering from anxiety. Being told to try joining a group ride presents a much more reasonable task.

What begins as a therapeutic tool can often lead to an identity, especially in the case of activities such as mountain biking which have a heavily physical component. This phenomenon can present its own challenges.

“The times that we notice the benefits [of physical activity] the most is when it is taken away,” Almeter told me. “When it is built into your life, but then you can’t do it anymore, it can leave you wondering why you are triggered, why you are blowing up. It’s because your outlet is gone.”

In other words, someone who participates in regular physical activity can become dependent on that outlet. And if that job ends or the hobby stops, a person can be left searching for a new identity. Some find that new identity in mountain biking.

Finding a healthy physical outlet can be especially true for those who have served in the military. Many veterans returning to civilian life can struggle with the mundane, explained Kenny Stone, the founder of Soldiers on Singletrack, a nonprofit that serves veterans by organizing regular group rides and hosting clinics.

Imagine, Stone says, going from the high pressure, high energy, and high consequence experience of the battlefield to an ordinary job after retirement. One day, your life, or a fellow soldier’s life is at risk. The next day, you’re selling insurance. Both experiences, of course, are valid, but the drastic difference in intensity prevents many veterans from properly adapting to civilian life.

“We seek the edge post-military—the thrill,” Stone said. “And that’s why there’s a huge addiction rate; we’re seeking that thrill.” Stone is a war veteran who suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) while in service. “If you get a TBI, they just lump you and TBI post-traumatic stress disorder together,” Stone said. “Because of those two things, I was having some issues in my life.”

Stone found relief the more he rode his mountain bike. “It was like 180 degrees from where I started,” he said. “I was a completely different person for the better.”

“We also partner with local trail associations to give back and help build and maintain trails,” Luu said.

Through Luu, I was introduced to program participants Jordan and Tara. For safety reasons and to preserve their anonymity, both rider’s names have been changed. Tara and Jordan joined Sacred Cycle in 2021. Initially, Jordan was terrified by the thought of mountain biking. But, over time, she came to look at the sport differently.

“Mountain biking made healing seem tangible,” she said. “The idea of acknowledging [my sexual trauma] was terrifying—so terrifying that it made the idea of mountain biking somehow seem less terrifying.”

Jordan’s healing came through therapy, coaching, and mountain biking, among other things. As she progressed as a mountain biker, she found she was growing and healing as an individual.

“If I could face my fears and anxieties on the bike, then I could also face them during my healing,” Jordan said. And while mountain biking has Jordan hooked, the community she found through Sacred Cycle is irreplaceable to her.

“To finally share my truth, my story, and to speak about my sexual trauma for the first time was a huge relief,” Jordan said. “Even though we started as strangers, the girls I met through Sacred Cycle quickly became a lifeline for me.”

Tara joined Sacred Cycle after doctors found a cyst in her brain. Healing and regaining her health not only meant having the cyst removed but also confronting past trauma. Similar to Jordan’s experience, Tara found comfort in the community Sacred Cycle provided.

“When we met as a group of survivors for therapy, I finally heard others had been thinking and feeling very similar thoughts I had been having all my life,” Tara said. “I thought I was crazy and just having irrational thoughts, but it was just my past trauma manifesting into my present situations.”

Tara’s healing journey, she says, corresponds so closely to her mountain bike progression that the two seem completely interlinked. At one point, during a race, she had an experience that pushed her to reach another level of confidence.

“I descended a technical switchback that I would have never considered attempting two years before,” Tara said. “With my new attitude and support system cheering me on, I was able to look where I wanted to go, lean into the turn, and ride through feeling empowered with skills and strategies that guide me to recovery from sexual abuse.”

Therapeutic benefits that can occur on group rides, during skill-building exercises, or within deep conversation are rooted in chemical changes in the brain. Stefanie Faye is a neuroscience specialist, educator, and author whose work delves into the inner workings of the brain and the mechanics of mindset and self-regulation. Trauma can rewire the brain, Faye says, and a lot of this process has to do with our ears.

“There are mechanisms inside our middle ear that have tiny little muscles,” Faye said. “Those muscles tighten or relax according to the frequencies that we’re surrounded by. That tightening and relaxing has a lot to do with which nervous system state we are in.”

Screaming, yelling, gunshots—these spikes are registered by the middle ear in addition to all other input from the surrounding environment. If auditory stimuli come from traumatic experiences, future similar experiences will be associated with that trauma. The more it happens, the more our brains begin making connections and processes— similar to how computer algorithms expedite and organize patterns of input—to predict when it will happen again.

“When there are certain frequencies, particularly these lower bass, and very high amplitude frequencies, the mechanism inside the middle ear gets us to only really pay attention to threat and danger,” Faye said. This is typically when a person enters into what many of us know as “fight or flight” mode.

But this isn’t the only response. Some may disassociate, while others may try to please. Whatever the response, the trauma triggers the algorithm in our brain, which essentially automates how to best get out of the situation.

“Our brain is experience-dependent. So it builds algorithms based on experiences,” Faye said. “When we enter new data, it changes the algorithm.” Traumatic experiences that, once built our algorithms, can be replaced, though Faye acknowledges that it takes time and repetition. Eventually, our brains receive enough input to disrupt the old algorithms. Only then can change occur. Groups like Sacred Cycle and Soldiers on Singletrack are helping to facilitate this rewiring of ingrained patterns by intentionally providing a place for their participants to heal.

“New voice frequencies, new phrases, new ways people are looking at each other, their body movements— all of it is in more of that paradigm,” Faye said. “This allows for new data to now enter that person’s system that says, “Human relationships can be safe, my environment can be safe.’”