Event Recap: The first annual She Shreds Legacy event outside of Whitefish, MT, proves that the future is bright for women's freeride.

This week, on a mountainside outside Whitefish, MT, thirty five women gathered for the first annual She Shreds Legacy . The event was a combination application / invitational for femme freeriders centered on progression, community-building, and visibility; the goal was to create a space where the participating riders could network, learn from one another, and both be and see the representation needed in a historically male-dominated sport.

That, and to have an actually absurd amount of fun.

She Shreds Legacy was co-founded by Kaytlyn Laree and Heather Hilton . The first seeds for the event, they say, were planted two years ago, during Legacy Bike Park ’s inaugural Lift Off event. “I was the only girl signed up,” Heather explains, so she asked Kaytlyn to join her. “There were like thirty guys in a party train, and then just she and I,” says Heather of the experience - which left both gals with the same thought: there should have been more.

So in 2023, after Heather got a managerial position with Legacy, and Kaytlyn got invited to athlete KaJay Rooke’s east coast women’s freeride event, Thunderstruck , the roots for She Shreds Legacy really started to grow deeper. “I didn’t really know any of the ladies,” Kaytlyn says of her trip to Massachusetts. “And I didn’t know how I was going to stack up next to them, so it was really intimidating. But I just have that ‘send button’ in me, so I committed - and it ended up being such a transformational experience.”

Kaytlyn says that her experience at Thunderstruck - along with her exposure to Alex Showerman’s Foundation Freeride event - got her thinking. “How many ladies would just trust their gut and take an invitation like the one I got? I got really inspired to figure out how to marry the two types of event, invitational and more application-based, to bridge the gap a little bit so ladies of all skill levels can ride with some of the best athletes in the industry right now.”

Heather says Kaytlyn’s musings paired perfectly with her desire to host a women’s event at Legacy Bike Park. “It was so cool to see what an invitational like Thunderstruck can do for someone’s self-confidence,” she says of watching Kaytlyn return from the event. “Her career just took off, she was able to make all these amazing connections and go on all these amazing bike trips with all these rad women.”

“I’d never been to a women’s event before,” Heather admits. “I’m new to biking - like six years in - and new to the bike industry, so Kaytlyn really spearheaded the invitational side of things. But I knew I wanted to host a women’s event.” Heather says part of that desire stemmed from her experience at Lift Off, and part of it stemmed from things like seeing little to no representation of women on the Legacy Bike Park socials. “Like, I think there was just one post of a gal biking and it was a kid - and while it’s awesome to see girls of all levels riding, there’s also women here who shred, and I wanted to market that side of things more.”

Invited athlete Barbara Edwards couldn’t agree more. “I think it’s important to have all-women's events; we need the light for the young girls to see the sport in a less intimidating way. Also, these grassroots events bring the women’s community closer together, and help spread that community into the overall mountain bike community. You’ll see more of these women in Rampage in future years,” she asserts with confidence, hinting that she, too, has her sights set on a spot at the start gate some day.

Linda Costain, the matriarch of one of Legacy’s four families with ownership stakes, shared Bab’s stoke. “I’m not as rad as most of my family,” she demurs, referring to folks like her son, pro athlete Parkin Costain , “but I love the scene. It’s so nice to see you all here,” she adds, looking around the packed shuttle rig on the bumpy ride back up for another lap down Onyx or Bluetiful from the top. “It’s usually just dudes.”

And fourty-five pound, eight-year old Aspen Payne , whose bike is so small it has to be loaded separately onto a tailgate pad over the rail of the shuttle instead of on the Huckwagon trailer behind it, is similarly adamant that riding with girls is just different (ie. better) than riding with boys: “Boys are more pushy and girls are more go with the flow,” she says with wide, sincere eyes, as her brother sitting next to her jabs her with an elbow in protest.

This thread weaving between the various experiences of each participants’ She Shreds experience proves just how needed - and appreciated - the space that the event created really is. Every rider found themself both being the representation for someone, and seeing in someone else the person they needed to see in the space. “It was really nice to have Brooklyn here,” says participant Erin Devault , of pro skier and mountain biker, Brooklyn Bell, as proof positive. “I just don’t get to ride with that many other women o  on bikes, and I wish that would change." Erin says she is especially grateful when this sort of encounter happens especially at the upper levels of her sport, where she sometimes questions  whether her presence is based on assessed skill level or harmful tokenization.

And fifty-three year old Tania Lillak drives it home that Heather and Kaytlyn have achieved what they set out to with She Shreds Legacy: "My son was my inspiration. We went to Highland in New Hampshire, and after that he didn’t really wanna trail ride anymore, he just wanted to go down-hilling. So we'd go as a family and he would follow me sometimes and say 'Mom, why don’t you jump?' and i would say well because I’m old and he said, 'Well, just try little jumps.' So I did and of course I got hooked."

Tania says the more time she spent at Highland, the smaller previously insurmountable features started to look. "I started doing bigger stuff, but there’s a lot of bro mentality there and a lot of guys." Tania says she started wondering why none of the women were hitting Highland's slopestyle course, for example. "So we got a group of women together, I think three summers ago now, and just went and sessioned it all. And we were so happy and so stoked."

And while Tania had assumed that was a finish line, it actually ended up being a start gate. "They started having competitions, so I was like 'Well, I guess I gotta do those!” and then they were like "It's not just about riding the slopestyle course, you gotta do tricks!'" She laughs. "So I guess I'm just gonna keep going till I don't feel like I can do it anymore."

Tania says she showed up at She Shreds because she likes that the goal is different than that at a competitive event. "There's a lot of bonding and pumping each other up and it’s not stressful. It’s your own personal progression at that point, or you’re looking to other people to provide inspiration."

She references Legacy Bike Park's main jump line, Jammer, as an example: "If I were here on my own, and I looked at Jammer and I didn't have the other women to inspire me, I'd be like 'I’m not sure about that...'" But because she says the purpose of an event like She Shreds is to create the space for folks to try new things in a supportive environment (and because she doesn't have to worry about another group of riders coming down the trial on top of her with frustrations that new-to-the-trail riders might be "in the way,") she found herself tackling - and eventually even tricking - features she might not have otherwise.

"For me, that’s the cool thing about these events. It IS different to look at women riding, and to say 'Well, if they’re doing it, I'm doing it. I think that's the whole point, and that’s why I'm still riding: I feel as though some people are like ‘Well, if Tania can do it, then I can do it."

Stay tuned for more She Shreds content, including athlete interviews, participant profiles and event footage to follow.

Related: "A Monumental Milestone" — What Women in Rampage Means for Mountain Biking