The first time I entered a mountain bike race, it was only because my friends were doing it. I’ll admit that sounds dumb, but it was a better bandwagon than smoking.

I wasn’t very competitive, nor especially fast or fit, but I sure did love riding my bike—especially with other people. Back in those days you could buy into casual community races in British Columbia for the price of a single coin. Clubs called them “toonie” races, and they were pretty much ubiquitous. (If you don’t know what a toonie is, get a passport.)

Situated west of Redding, California, near the town of Weaverville, a snaking strip of singletrack descends through ponderosa pine, Douglas fir, and sugar pine.

In one section, the sight of a towering Pacific madrone tree had me squeezing my brakes to admire it. The trail, called Sweepstakes, is a new, purpose-built downhill trail created by the Redding Trail Alliance (RTA) and several partners.

It’s a marvel of perfectly built switchbacks that weave through optional jump lines. When connected to trails below it, Sweepstakes creates a 10-mile route with 3,000 feet of total descending.

A crowd of riders stands silent on Mount Benson in Nanaimo, British Columbia. Their attention is fixed on the couple standing slightly above them, tucked between the trees.

Wearing dark glasses, hands shaking, and speaking through tears, Chantel and Mike Jeromkin read from a creased sheet of paper. Below, a collective roar of support comes from the gathered group when they finish, and the first riders turn and drop into Mattmo.

On a breezy Sunday afternoon at the West Maui Bike Park, the kids are champing at the bit. They huddle around Ray Watson, their tufts of sun-bleached hair poking through the vents of their helmets.

“Uncle, uncle! Can we ride yet?”

Not yet. Watson sends them back into the park with five-gallon buckets and miniature McLeods. 

They scatter toward the red-dirt jumps and pumptrack, eager to earn the right to ride—and to eat birthday cake afterward. It’s the first birthday of Watson’s son Louie.

It’s a frigid winter morning in Crested Butte, Colorado, and a shower of silky snow is becoming visible in the dawn’s soft light. The smell of fresh coffee wafts through the air as an animated group of bus drivers convenes at the Mountain Express shuttle terminal, trading quips and laughing as they prepare to haul an eager mix of tourists and locals to the Crested Butte Mountain Resort.

A chorus of cheers erupts as a lanky, long-legged figure pedals his townie onto the lot, flashing mischievous smiles to his fellow drivers as he greets them one by one with a witty remark and a knowing, eye-to-eye gaze. His enthusiasm for the promise of a new day is contagious, but it’s what locals have come to expect from Don Cook, an unwavering beacon of light who many consider to be the town’s unofficial mayor.

The leaves feel like Pacific Northwest powder under my tires. Soft enough to drift the back end in a playful slash, but firm enough to create traction atop the slick, clay-rich soil below.

The morning sun shines brightly through the open natural hardwood forest—called Satoyama—an endemic demarcation between wilderness and human settlement. Wide tree spacing and a naturally manicured forest floor allows space for creativity and playfulness among the rolling detritus. Dropping off the ridge, the forest changes character with arrow-straight trunks of artificially planted Japanese cedar anchored in wide banks of loam so dark that it consumes any remaining light penetrating the dense canopy like a black hole.

It’s raining sideways. Cold rain, like ice pellets on the face. Wind bends the treetops. The temperature hovers barely above 32 degrees Fahrenheit—hypothermal conditions.

“D’is is called da ‘B.C. Trail,’” says Michał Jurewicz.

He nods toward a sliver of black dirt that angles along a granite cliff before disappearing into a dark corridor of cedar and fir.

Like a lot of mountain bike trails, this one has a backstory. According to Jurewicz, COVID-19 killed the British Columbia travel plans of some local shredders. Bored and spared the cost of airfare, they decided to build a trail in the steep hills above their hometown of Szklarska Poreba in the Krkonoše, or Giant Mountains. It was to be the B.C. of their mountain biking dreams. Their imaginations were rich, we would soon discover.

It was January before I heard back from three separate sponsors that there wasn’t going to be a spot for me on their team in 2026. After months of ongoing attempts to stay on people’s minds as they built out their budgets for the year, I had essentially just found out that I no longer had a job as a professional mountain biker. I’d been deemed “washed up” without my knowledge.

On top of this, my relentless attempts to get consistent employment outside of the bike industry throughout this time had failed me as well.