Ellen Campbell’s Ride Dirt social mountain biking workshop is back for Year 3 with some exciting new workshops.
Campbell added a race-ready and group riding workshop, took away a gravel workshop from last year and split up the mountain bike skills into two workshops.
The off-road cyclists and Durango native already had her first Ride Dirt workshop of the summer on July 2, which focused on foundational mountain bike skills like body positioning, braking, trail scanning and bike-body separation.
“We had a lot of awesome people show up,” Campbell said. “We had a lot of new faces and it went really well. We had 16 women show up. I had it out at Three Springs on the Spur Line Trails. It was really nice to have. I think there was one gal that had been to one other workshop, but otherwise, it was 15 brand-new faces. I’m really just stoked to have that many new people. A lot of them connected and are going out on rides together later.”
Campbell was stoked to see women of all ages at the first workshop. She saw a lot of women around her age who were encouraged to come by their boyfriends. Campbell saw a good mix of women who had been riding their whole adult life but hadn’t branched out, women who had a crash and were intimidated after that and women who wanted a refresher on their skills after a period of not riding.
It’s the third year of Ride Dirt, but it’s the second year that Campbell has had five workshops.
Campbell got the idea for Ride Dirt when she was living in Missoula, Montana. She coached and helped out with the workshops at a women’s mountain biking club called MT Alpha. Campbell really enjoyed the atmosphere and how many women showed up for those workshops.
After that experience, Campbell got the idea to host mountain bike workshops in Durango. She wanted to make them only open to women, femme, transgender and nonbinary people to make them feel confident that they can go out and ride on dirt. Campbell wanted to connect women who are just getting into riding or need some buddies to go riding with.
At the first workshop this year, Campbell was really happy to see some women share phone numbers at the trailhead and create a group chat so they could go riding together again in the future.
“My goal with it was really to create a space that is casual and inclusive,” Campbell said. “Some of the mountain biking skills are pretty fundamental and pretty basic, but … I feel like a lot of people come back and we go over so many things that I feel like each time they come back, or if they're like returning, that they get to learn; ‘last time I was really focused on this one skill, and now I'm can focus other skills because I've nailed that one, or I feel more comfortable doing that other one.”’
Although Campbell is a professional off-road racer, she doesn’t want the workshops to feel like she’s above the women who show up to the workshop. She’s with them.
Campbell knows there are plenty of mountain biking tutorials on the internet on things like jumping, cornering better or riding better in general. She wants it to be a discussion with the women who show up about how things feel, or what some different ways to do what they’re talking about.
There are questions the women ask Campbell that she doesn’t know the answer to. She’s ok with that and wants the group to try and figure it out together.
One of the biggest changes to Ride Dirt is the second workshop on Wednesday from 5:30-7 p.m. at the Colorado Trail at Junction Creek. The second workshop is on being race-ready and group riding. Campbell will cover all the little details with racing, along with fueling and hydration, equipment choice and riding in a group safely.
Campbell said she has a lot of women who are race curious, whether it’s a completion goal or a competitive one. She wants to get women ready to compete in any event they want to do.
Another big change is splitting up the mountain bike skills workshop into two different workshops. The first workshop, targeted at beginners, already happened on July 2. However, the intermediate riding workshop, building on mountain biking basics, is on Aug. 13 from 5:30-7 p.m. at Horse Gulch Trailhead. This workshop will cover corners, body position and bike-body separation continued, roll overs and wheel lifts.
Campbell sent out a survey after last year’s workshops and one of the most common responses was to have a beginner-specific mountain bike skills workshop.
“At first, I was pretty hesitant to categorize abilities, because I've always said it’s open to all abilities,” Campbell said. “But I have had a lot of riders who are repeat riders, have a lot of fitness, maybe ride pretty frequently, but don't need foundational skills. But they want to learn how to do a wheel lift so they could pop over a curve, or they want a little bit more advanced skills.”
Campbell got rid of the gravel workshop from last year because she feels most of the skills are similar to the ones in the mountain bike skills workshops.
The fourth workshop will be on general bike maintenance on Aug. 27 from 5:30-7 p.m. at Factory Trails at Fort Lewis College. Chain lube, sealant top off and washing bikes will be covered.
The final workshop is scheduled for Sept. 17 from 5:30-7 p.m. at Falls Creek Trailhead. The focus is on trailside repairs; flat fixes and tire repair, tire plugs, cockpit adjustments and wheel removal will be covered.
Campbell will have some goodies to hand out from her sponsors at the remaining workshops and she’s thankful to have her sponsors support Ride Dirt.
For more information on Ride Dirt and to sign up (it’s free), visit https://ellenmcampbell.weebly.com/ride-dirt-workshops.html.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
