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MAY/JUN 2019
ing women how to ride bikes. Is there
one place or race that stands out in
your mind? Is there one place that was
a complete surprise that you didn’t ex-
pect? Is there a bucket list of places on
this planet that you would love to ride
your bike?
LR:I have been very lucky to ride and teach
in some glorious places. I didn’t love Dubai,
but I enjoyed the experience teaching there.
Italy and Switzerland were pretty awe-
some and the surprise places we loved are
Bentonville, Arkansas and Copper Harbor,
Michigan. I would love to ride my bike in as
many places as possible around the world.
GET2KNOW| LINDSEY RICHTER
Ladies AllRide Mountain Bike Skills Camps
you for what you do. I think I’m addicted to
learning more about mountain biking!”
OO: People must come up to you all the
time and say, “you have the greatest,
most fun career ever, racing and now
teaching cycling”. What are some of the
“un-glamorous” parts of being a racer,
now business owner and how have
you handled the tremendous growth of
Ladies AllRide?
LR: Racing was fun because I needed
something that challenged me after not hav-
ing sports in my life post-high school, but I
never took it that seriously. I started to burn
catching the side of the freeway on fire. It’s
also hard to have a sick day. If one of us is
sick during a camp we still have to show up
and get the job done.
OO: How do you fill the long, cold
winter months? Have you thought about
starting a Ladies AllShred winter camp?
LR: I LOVE winter! Snowboarding is one
my biggest passions and I sometimes wish
I could be in endless winter. Haha! Then I
would have to start something in the winter
wouldn’t I!? We use the winter as a time to
recharge and prep for the year ahead. We
can do that from anywhere since it’s all done
11
lake trips with friends from home, but I get
to explore some amazing places all sum-
mer so I try and take a day before or after
a camp to enjoy where I am on and off the
bike.
OO: Tell us something people don’t
know about you?
LR: I grew up riding horses and they were
my whole world. I had all the plastic horse
models, posters of horses in my room and I
would gallop around pretending I was riding
a horse everywhere I went. I show-jumped
horses and guided horseback trail rides out
of Black Butte Ranch as a teenager.
OO: You have a long list of companies
who sponsor Ladies AllRide. How do
they help the program?
LR: We simply cannot make these camps
happen without sponsors because we want
to keep them affordable. Cash from spon-
sors helps us keep our prices close to the
same each year so we aren’t raising the pric-
es astronomically. Having Liv and SRAM as
our title and presenting sponsors is a dream
come true because they provide our key staff
with the best products to teach on, support
for our products and marketing through their
channels. All of our sponsors provide product
that we get to share with the ladies through
demos, raffles and discount codes and we
are honored to promote products we believe
in. We are proud to show ladies which com-
panies in the bike industry are supporting our
mission to get more women into mountain
biking and it means the world to us.
P: courtesy of Ladies Allride
Outdoor: For those who don’t know,
what is Ladies AllRide?
Lindsey: We run instructional mountain bike
skills camps around the country (with a few
overseas each year) where we coach up to
65 participants at each camp. These are
fun-filled weekend events that are meant to
bring women together to share the joys of
mountain biking and learn in a safe, encour-
aging and welcoming environment. We are
passionate mountain bikers and profession-
ally trained skills instructors who teach all
levels of riders from beginner to advanced.
We strive to build community and grow the
population of female mountain bikers across
the globe. Combined with skills on the bike,
we also inspire women to face fears, believe
in themselves and change negative thoughts
to positive.
We relate mountain biking to life by helping
women see how fear can debilitate us on the
bikes and in life. We have a unique formula
where we throw in life skills along with bike
skills. For instance, we don’t stare at that
rock and imagine crashing into it; we choose
a line, look ahead and think only thoughts
that serve us, thoughts about what we need
to do to get through, thoughts that keep us
moving forward. A Ladies AllRide weekend
is not only full of awesome instruction on the
bike, we also provide a Friday and Saturday
afternoon happy hour, goodie bags full of
awesome sponsor product and coupons,
raffle prizes, discounts to our partner bike
shops, a nutritious lunch, snacks like Picky
Bars and free demo products like G-Form
pads, Liv cycling shoes, SMITH helmets
and Liv demo bikes. We also offer an hour
of “education stations” with topics like bike
maintenance, suspension set-up, nutrition
on and off the bike, managing fear and a
body positioning slideshow with commentary.
OO: When did Ladies AllRide start?
What about the partnership with Grit
Clinics?
LR: I started Ladies AllRide in 2013 and the
first official camp was in 2015. My business
partner Meredith Brandt had been running
Grit Clinics, a series of women’s mountain
bike skills clinics locally in Bend since 2011.
I approached her in 2014 and asked if she
was interested in running camps with me
around the country through Ladies AllRide.
We rebranded Grit Clinics into a private, per-
sonalized coaching service where we teach
men, women, kids and small groups all over
the country and made it the sister company
to Ladies AllRide. Grit Clinics is sort of a
brokerage service for mountain bike lessons.
We customize the clinics to meet the needs
of participants and set them up with coaches
in their regions, or fly coaches to them.
OO: When you started Ladies AllRide
you had a mission. Is the mission still
the same? Do you think you have/are
making a difference?
LR: My mission is to change women’s lives
with two wheels and some dirt and that
hasn’t changed. I do believe we are making
a difference in women’s lives because they
tell us we are. I came up with Ladies AllRide
as a way to attract more women into the
sport because during my decade of traveling
for races I was only meeting women at race
events and struggled to find women who just
wanted to ride with me without competition.
I wanted to learn to be a better rider, but
had a hard time finding anyone to teach me
things in a way I could understand. I also felt
that what was missing from the bike industry
was an emotional component that addressed
how intimidating and emotional mountain
biking can be. I wanted to invite more
women into the sport by being a relatable
role model and educating them about how a
sport like this can help them face fears and
believe in themselves.
The goals of each individual camp is for the
women to walk away with a whole bunch
of new skills, newfound confidence in
themselves, new friendships and a deeper
understanding of mountain biking and how
the lifestyle can enhance their lives. We
hope women will be inspired to pay it forward
and help get more women into the sport.
We also hope they have more confidence to
take care of their own equipment and that
they understand how to set their bikes up
for themselves, like suspension, brake lever
reach, etc. It is also a goal to encourage
them to make purchases based on our rec-
ommendations because our sponsors mean
the world to us.
OO: You have assembled an incredible
team of talented women coaches from
all over America. There are a lot, so
how does it work? Are coaches used
depending on their location around the
country?
LR: Once I learned how to coach moun-
tain biking I set out to coach all over the
country in as many places as possible and
through that I started meeting other women
who either coached or were interested in
coaching. We currently have a roster of 60
coaches from all corners of the U.S. and we
choose them based on experience, location
and dedication to our cause. We are blessed
to have so many amazing women coaching
with us!
OO: You have traveled all over the
world racing bikes professionally. You
have traveled all over the world teach-
OO: Have any guys ever asked to sign
up for a Ladies AllRide Camp because it
would be a awesome place to meet fun,
athletic women?
LR: Haha! Yes, we’ve definitely had men
want to sign up for a camp but not neces-
sarily to meet women, (they ARE a great
place to meet rad women) but more because
they’ve realized they could use some coach-
ing because they are self-taught. Many times
it’s because their lady friends will come back
from our camps and tell them what they
learned and it makes them want to learn all
those things too. It’s awesome! Grit Clinics
takes care of coaching men, so we DO have
a program for them.
OO: After a camp ends, what are some
of the things that campers have come
up to you and said?
LR: Well, I keep a folder of all the testimoni-
als from the internet and I write down what
people say to us after the camps. Here are a
few of my favorites:
“This camp has changed my life! I never
realized how much I have held myself back
because of fear!”
“You humanized mountain biking for me!
You made me see women can do the same
things men can on a bike!”
“It must be so refreshing to you that the
people you coach consistently have the same
feedback - you pique interest, but don’t
pressure. I was doing things I would have
never tried if you hadn’t proven to us that we
could do it. You all are such an inspiration!”
“I never thought I needed a lesson on how
to ride a bike until my friends talked me into
this camp. I now realize mountain biking
is NOT just riding a bike. This weekend
showed me how to face fears, overcome
challenges and think thoughts that serve me.
It’s pretty unreal how all of this relates to life
and I’ve never looked at it this way. Thank
All photos courtesy of Ladies Allride
out on competition because it took so much
physical dedication and I stopped caring
about wins. Some of the “un-glamorous”
things about being a business owner are
you never leave work at the office. We
work constantly. There are no office hours,
it’s constant work and stress to make sure
everything runs smoothly and that we’re
getting the word out about our camps. There
are also very few days off during the season.
Even when I’m between camps I’m usually
driving the van for days to get to the next lo-
cation and dealing with things that go wrong
along the way like the van breaking down or
a tire on the trailer blowing up and almost
on computers and phones. I’m very grateful
that I am able to spend my days however
I want with no schedule and the ability to
travel and chase powder for a few months.
OO: You work and travel a lot, is there
such a thing as a day off? If there is a
“day off” where would we find Lindsey
Richter? Would that day off include a
bicycle?
LR: There are some days off when I get to
go on long mountain bike rides with friends
for fun and I truly look forward to those days
since I don’t get many of them all summer.
I miss out on summer BBQ’s, camping and
I’m also not sure many people know that I
was on the TV show Survivor: Africa back in
2001-2002 when the show was new to the
world and I did a lot of cool things because
of it. I was in an Eminem music video, I was
on shows like Hollywood Squares, David
Letterman, Howard Stern, The Early Show
and Regis and Kelly. I also co-hosted some
talk shows a few times in Portland, OR
where I grew up and attended many celeb-
rity charity events where I got to know some
pretty cool celebrities.
Dani Whitehead | P: Austin White