Welcome to Issue 15.3
We’re all on our own path, be that in pursuit of a first successful run down the local bunny trail or a first successful backflip. As mountain biking evolves, so too do the ways in which riders connect with what it means to ride a bike. In this issue of Freehub, we share stories of those who have a wholly unique take on progression. One rider questions why anyone would ever want to climb the equivalent of the highest point on Earth in a single day when they could instead descend to its lowest. In reports from the race circuit, Anne Keller profiles the only two professional female mechanics working the North American scene, while Brett Rothmeyer documents Keegan Swenson’s meteoric rise to multidisciplinary stardom. When viewed as a single set of pieces, these stories—our stories as mountain bikers—both stand-alone and share deep common bonds.
Paige Stuart is disarmingly considerate, even at four o’clock in the morning. Between offering coffee, checking last-minute notes, chatting with racers, and forcing down some cereal, the petite 44-year-old is cleaning the kitchen.
Stuart is an elite race mechanic tasked with working on bikes for some of the best riders in the world. But right now, in the few idle moments between tasks associated with guaranteeing that multiple intricate machines will function flawlessly for the entirety of the Leadville 100 cross-country race, there is a dirty kitchen, and since no one else is stepping up to the task, Stuart does dishes.
Words and Photos by Anne Keller
Tell me about the biggest wave you’ve ever ridden, I said. Tell me what it felt like to stand on top of the world, feel the rush of water under your feet, and hear the ocean’s roar surround you. Tell me about the way the wind whipped the spray in your face. We were nowhere near the ocean.
Somewhere in Colorado, I was grinding up a climb, and I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make it. So, I said, turning to my friend Josh, tell me a story. I had started the day confident in a sun shining, birds chirping kind of way. My freshly cleaned bike gleamed, and the drivetrain spun soundlessly. Even a creak in my bike’s suspension that I could never quite pinpoint had decided to take a nap. The day’s plan called for a climb followed by a long descent. By a mathematical sleight of hand, the descent added up to longer than the climb. It was going to be the most perfect ride ever.
Words by Jen See | Illustration by Victor Brousseaud
It would be at no fault of the outside observer to look at the last few years of Keegan Swenson’s cycling career and think of him as ordained with a gift reserved for a select few. During the past three seasons, Keegan has been nearly unbeatable across a range of disciplines.
With panache and style, he regularly smashes course records and, in doing so, has assumed the throne of an elite hierarchy that is developing within the North American off-road racing scene as new events crop up that require athletes to possess both technical skill and an extraterrestrial level of fitness.
Words by Brett Rothmeyer
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.
Words by Jen See
The Nass River, originating from the Sacred Headwaters in northern British Columbia, cuts a broad valley through steep coastal mountains spilling into the ocean 20 kilometers below the village of Gitwinksihlkw.
Above town, from the viewpoint on Saasak’ Hill, the Nisga’a Memorial Lava Beds stretch as a flat expanse between dark green mountains. The scene is stunning; it’s part of what attracts mountain bikers to northern B.C. as they search further afield from popular, well-trodden trail towns to the south.
Words by Ben Haggar | Photos by Mattias Fredriksson
We know less about the deepest points on our planet than we do about the surface of Mars. More than 6,600 individuals have summited Mount Everest, and yet only 27 have reached Challenger Deep, the deepest point of our ocean. Located at the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, this pitch-black canyon lies 35,814 feet below the surface.
Pulled perhaps by the human tendency to seek out places unknown and feats unconquered, cyclists have, in the last half-decade or so, become entranced by the concept of “Everesting.” The idea is simple: Pick any hill, anywhere in the world, and ride repeats of it in one go until you finally accumulate 8,848 meters (29,029 feet) of elevation gain. This concept has been accomplished via road and mountain bike over 27,000 times by those wishing to prove indefatigable spirit and quads. Pretty cool, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Words by Dillon Osleger | Photos by Amado Stachenfeld
Recently, I had a full-circle moment in the most unlikely place. Pacing nervously, I waited for my teammates to arrive on a canoe at Bellingham, Washington’s annual community race extravaganza, Ski to Sea. In truth, I’d pulled up to this function a little out of sorts.
“What am I doing here?” I kept asking myself. As a professional freerider, I felt way outside my comfort zone participating in the cyclocross leg of a relay race. I was surrounded by people from every walk of life, all with number plates adorning their bikes. Nearby, an auctioneer shouted off team numbers from incoming canoes so fast that I started to feel like I was in a fever dream. After months of introspection, standing on the banks of the Nooksack River in spandex wasn’t exactly providing much clarity.
