LADIES WHO LAUNCH

WITH WOMEN'S FREERIDE GOING FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH, WE CHECK OUT THE STATE OF OUR HOMEGROWN DIRT JUMPING SCENE

- Emily Horridge

ALMOST 20 YEARS AGO, WE RAN A FEATURE IN MBUK ABOUT WOMEN DIRT JUMPING. Back then, it was no mean feat finding female riders who could jump to appear in the mag. In fact, we had to ask downhillers Rachel Atherton and Helen Gaskell to travel the length of the country to join Emily Horridge at a spot down in Somerset. Two decades on, how things have changed! Women now have their own freeride jams (Project Evolve, Red Bull Formation), a separate category at many FMB World Tour rounds, and can be seen hitting the massive jumps of Darkfest and Audi Nines. We decided it was high time for a follow-up article, so we asked Emily to get some friends together for a session at S4P B1kepark in Surrey and check out what's going on down at the dirt jumps these days.

The only girl at the jumps

"I think the reason I suggested the original article all those years ago was that I really wanted to ride with some girls, but the major problem was that I didn't know anyone in my local area who jumped," says Emily, now an alpine MTB guide, then a stalwart of the UK downhill scene. "I'd been riding all sorts of mountain bikes since the early '90s, but back in those days I really was the only girl at the jumps."