Exeter Bike Park hosted the Dirt Sisters of Shred event and our Tash Bradley was on hand to do some coaching.
Despite nursing a broken collarbone, Team Wideopenmag’s Natatsha Bradley headed to Exeter Bike Park for the Dirt Sisters of Shred event to do some coaching.
Read Tash’s full report from the Dirt Sisters of Shred event below.
Photos by Chris Davison.
I run a coaching business called MTB Devon and was asked to go and do some coaching at a Dirt sisters of shred event at Exeter Bike Park.
It was the first female-only event I’ve attended and I had no idea how many girls rode mountain bikes. It was incredible to see so many girls of all ages having fun and shredding bikes. The atmosphere was incredible, with everyone cheering each other on and getting to know one another.
Exeter Bike Park hosted the event, its a new bike park but was very well received by everyone, it’s only a small hill but Kye Forte and his crew have certainly crammed a lot in. The race was held on the blue run which consists of rollers, doubles, drop offs and some very dusty corners.
All the riders arrived in the morning and practice was underway by 10 o’clock, with everyone practicing race lines and familiarising themselves with the track. Unfortunately I’m still recovering from a broken collarbone so I was just at the event doing some coaching, which seemed to go down pretty well. We set up a slalom on the grass and did some coaching with cornering and body positioning. All the girls seemed to enjoy it and show some good progress that they transitioned onto the race track.
The weather was incredible, probably the nicest day of the year, however being in a field with no shade meant for some very red faces. It made racing conditions hard as riders were heating up in the sun and the track was super dusty, especially the corners.
I noticed a lot of people struggling on the bottom section of the track, with the final corner and 3 drop offs in a row causing some problems. I decided to do some coaching on this section, practicing line choice into the corner (wider line on the grass to get more grip and a better line into the corner). Getting the girls to brake in the correct places (before the corner) and get their weight back over the drop offs, as I’d seen some near misses on the drops with weight being right over the front.
Racing started quite late 14.30pm, it was timed runs down the blue track, the young girls went first, they were all so young yet absolute shredders. One who stood out for me particularly was Daisy, she was only about 3 or 4 but she was so fast and composed on the bike.
Every time someone crossed the line the crowd, who were all sitting on the hill with a view of the whole track cheered, which gave the event such a good atmosphere however with there being a 100 entrants the crowd were definitely flagging towards the end.
Tye D’Souza took a well deserved first place and the fastest time of the day, she was flying down the course so this is no surprise. All in all it was a great event, with great spectators, riders and weather. What the guys from Dirt sisters of Shred are doing for the sport is incredible and so many women are being encouraged to get into mountain biking and racing due to this. I would highly recommend going to one of these events if you are into mountain biking… and a girl.
