Racing the 2017 Downhill BC cup

This past summer I have been racing the BC Cup downhill bike cricut. This was my first year racing downhill mountain bikes. I joined the local bike team, Seven Summits Gravity Racing, which is coached by my father Ryan Kuhn.

This was pretty much my very first year biking. Meaning that when I suddenly decided to race the BC Cup I had lots of challenges that I had to overcome. It really hit me hard at my first race that I was going to have to do things that scared me. When we first started training on the course I didn’t think it was going to be possible for me to do some of features on the course. I learned that as long as I believed in myself and used my skills I could ride everything. It look lots of mental stamina, but the more I rode the better I got at judging my ability. By the end of that first race in Whistler, I came in 5’th place. After finishing that race, I knew that I wanted to do more and more and feel the adrenaline rush of doing something so scary as fast as I can..

I continued to race the BC at Sun Peaks, Silver Star and Big White. I came 4’th at all of those races. Every race I got closer to 3rd place. The first race I was a while off and by the end I was only 11 seconds off, which isn’t very long on a track that was around 4:30 on average.I got into the local newspaper for my race run at Big White. I also learned how great the camaraderie is in my category. It was a great experience to be surrounded by girls my age who all have the same passions for biking: to go as fast as possible.

During August, I got to go ride in Whistler during Crankworx with my family. On the way there we did some trail riding in Squamish. Their trail next work is giant and all their trails are well-built and great to ride. They have all skill levels. The Whistler bike park is crazy busy during that time but is so cool to be able to see the pro riders that you watch on TV bike in real life. You get to look at all the beautiful new bikes that you want but can’t afford. The best part of that trip was definitely being able to go down to Vancouver after a great day of riding and seeing Metallica play! The whole concert was so well done and downhill biking and Metallica go hand in hand!

This past weekend, my dad and I drove all the way to Mt. Washington on Vancouver Island for the Steve Smith Memorial DH, the final race of the BC Cup season. The track there was very scary the first few times I rode it, but after doing track walks I was feeling good about it. The weather, on the other hand, did not feel good. The track was dry and dusty the first two days we trained on it. On race day it poured rain. There were winds up to 70km and it was freezing cold. I had so many layers on it felt like I was going skiing! During my race run I crashed twice and ended up in 6th place. I would have liked to do better at the last race of the season, but there was a great group of people there and it was so cool to see everyone come together to remember Stevie. As the first DH World Champion for Canada, his inspiration has had an amazing impact on so many people's lives, including my own.

I am so thankful to everyone who made it possible for me to get into this great sport. I am looking forward to next season and bringing up the speed more and more.