When I consider community within the context of mountain biking, I tend to think in broad strokes. We bond around the shared exhilaration and fun the sport brings—a beautiful thing itself but hardly a revelation. While creating this edition of Freehub, it became apparent that more nuanced themes were emerging to cast light into the unlikely places where modern mountain bikers are finding connection.

With so many people discovering the sport, perhaps it’s obvious that the myriad of meanings derived from it would also surge. Each new rider brings her own take. Each new rider brings his own prior lived experiences. Just as meaningful, though, is how we merge these disparate experiences when we engage in the simple, singular act of riding our bikes. As global headlines drone on about widening political, social, and economic divides, we mountain bikers can rejoice in the fact that when we cross paths on some desolate stretch of trail, we are, at least in that blip of time, essentially one and the same.

Many of the stories in these pages document cases of riders looking inward, only to later emerge with newfound bonds to other people.

In his poignant piece, “Inner Revolutions,” writer Travis Reill comes to grips with years spent in an abusive, cult-like church during solitary bike rides. Before long, he realizes he’s far from the only soul spinning their cranks away from trauma and toward new, positive relationships, connections, and futures. One rider he spoke with for his story told him: “Mountain biking made healing seem tangible.”

For Laura Blythe, who writer Kristian Jackson profiles in his feature, “The Right Path,” mountain biking felt downright awful at first. In the mountains of the Qualla Boundary, home of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, she stubbornly worked her way through the discomfort, eventually falling in love with local, newly built trails at Fire Mountain in the far western reaches of North Carolina. Now, only four years into her journey as a mountain biker, Blythe is channeling the concept of Gadugi—a Cherokee word that describes a community in which people share a common vision—to bring others into the fold with her “7 Moons MTB” program that organizes ultra-supportive group rides.

On the sport’s competitive side, history was made in March when women were finally given the chance to compete in a premier slopestyle event at the first stop of the Crankworx World Tour in Rotorua, New Zealand. I was struck by the palpable sense of camaraderie evident on screen between the athletes—a phenomenon that was punctuated by Harriet “Haz” Burbidge-Smith literally tackling Robin Goomes and knocking her from her bike in a moment of unbridled stoke after she unseated her from the first-place position.

“Honestly, it’s been nothing but love all week,” Goomes said during an interview following the event.

Community takes on many forms. But one thing remains true across the spectrum: We’re better together.

—Ian Terry, Editor in Chief