It’s been quite a journey with me and mountain biking. I’ve started it, I’ve quit, I’ve written thinkpieces for this very website (which, looking back, are still sort of bad? I did finally get a dropper and I was wrong!), and finally I started to really love mountain biking. But there’s still so much to work on! Turns into technical drops still mess me up. Sharp hairpins, same. There’s an element of fear, or a lack of confidence, that I feel sometimes and constantly think about getting rid of. Outside of going back in time and starting to mountain bike at age 7, I wasn’t sure if anything would change these few issues.

So when a few women and I started talking about going to a women’s downhill mountain bike clinic in Colorado, it sounded terrific. A weekend in my home state and a clinic in a bike park? Sign me up. And so I did.

The organizers asked everyone to fill out a survey noting what we’re good at, what we want to work on, what type of riders we are. I tried to be totally honest - getting seeded into the right group would be best for me and for everyone I’d be riding with all weekend. And as it turns out, I landed in an Advanced group. This absolutely made my head spin. I still consider myself to be barely intermediate at times. I’m generally very fit and I love to climb, and my descending has improved a lot, but hairpins! And turns into features! I even said to the coaches that I was probably incorrectly seeded and would be moving down after lunch. Of course this is common for women to sell ourselves short so they said well, let’s see how you go.

Our coaches were so incredible. Britt, our head coach, is an enduro pro, new mom, and all around total badass. Her form is outstanding and she’s great at telling people how to do a hard thing, showing them, and figuring out how to get them to do it. For example, I did best when I could follow her over a feature. I also got very into chasing her down the mountain on the flow sections, which was an insane amount of fun. We were going like really fast and in fact she said something funny to me as we were waiting for the rest of the camp to catch us. Basically, all the other coaches were talking about the New Yorkers showing up in spandex (everyone else wore baggies but I’m sorry I hate them, the shorts are so uncomfortable and they always look stupid on my short legs) like it was ridiculous and we must be roadies. She told me in response she said ‘well, my New Yorker rips’. I almost died of happiness.

By the end of two days, I was not only way more confident on a variety of features, I also had 7 extremely cool new friends. It was an incredibly positive atmosphere - we’d get to a feature, everyone would try it, and when we got it, we’d all cheer. There was one spot I tried 6 times - which felt a little silly, but it was the process I had to go through.

I also learned a lot from having a peer group that was around my age, and my ability. Because we had similar backgrounds in riding and could talk about times we ended up in tears and hiking with our mountain bikes, or when we conquered a new trail, the support we all felt was incredible. I left the weekend feeling like I had lifelong friends that I’d reach out to when I happened to be in town.

Would I do another downhill camp? I actually don’t think so, funny enough. This was a terrific experience which led me to realize that I’m pretty good at mountain biking now. I can get down just about anything if I put my mind to it. But some features are too intense and I don’t need to ride everything.

All that said, I can’t recommend a camp like this highly enough. If you’re not crazy enough to fly across the country for one, check one out where you live (Liz and I were the only people who flew in, in the entire camp!). it’s also pretty annoying to rent a mountain bike for a camp like this! But if you’re looking to break through to another level in your riding and want to meet some very cool new friends… what’s stopping you?