Today we move to the North East to chat to one of the organisers of the all female 18+ mountain bike festival, Limitlass. I spoke to Katie May who is one of three women organising this event, about the importance of an event like this, the process of organising and just what exactly your ticket will get you.
Limitlass is a brand new women’s mountain bike festival happening from the 26th until the 28th of August 2022. The event will take place in Glen Tanar forest, Aberdeenshire.
Katie’s inspiration for organising the three day event is to allow women to explore the Cairngorms National Park, meet new people who share the same love for the sport and develop your confidence and skills on the bike: “We are aiming to bring women together for a weekend of skills coaching, guided rides, fun and games, good food, a bit of yoga and good vibes.”
Attendees will arrive at around 5pm on Friday 26th and stay until late afternoon on Sunday 28th.
The Friday night will include food and a film night, whilst Saturday will involve coaching and workshops. These range from mindfulness to trail side repairs, talks and music. The final day will be filled with activities such as the three hour guided rides and coaching specific to jumping.
Katie described the idea as being ‘quite last minute’, a plan that had begun to form at the start of the year. The three women who put this plan into action were, Katie, a mountain bike guide at DeesideMTB alongside Anna Riddell, who is the founder of Ride Out Coaching which is based in Moray and Fiona Finnie who is the founder of the Cairngorms based guiding company Elevate MTB.
They had all separately wanted to organise a women’s event for a while and all had experience with small events through their guiding companies.
“We’ve all experienced the excitement and stoke and community that comes through women’s mountain bike events. The idea was to create a safe, supportive space for women to shine”, explained Katie, on their motivations for organising the weekend.
What followed was ‘a manic few months of organisation.’
Katie said: “it was a bit of a leap and it’s been a massive learning curve.”
They have decided to start smaller this year with 70 riders attending the festival. All three women have high hopes for increasing this in future years.
We then went on to chat about the importance of an event like this to bring women together within the sport.
Katie explains: “I think mountain biking in general is having a boom at the moment, and you see that across the board from who’s out riding to increased numbers at races. We think it’s important to build connections and a community, to help the community of women in the sport grow.”
Katie described how there has been huge growth both in how many riders there are but also female representation within brands.
Katie explains why it was so important for Limitlass to create a safe and welcoming place for minority groups: “There’s definitely more we can do for minorities within women, for example ethnic minorities in mountain biking”.
Discounted tickets are being offered for women in ethnic minorities and also in the LGBTQ+ community to help build representation within the space.
This festival is simply about: “connecting women to nature, connecting women to each other, connecting women to brands.”
A few tickets excluding the 3 hour guided rides are still available, you can find them here.
For information through social media: @wearelimitlass
@fee.mtb
@annariddz
@katieemay31
And for information about mountain biking, look here.
So if your in the woods in the Cairngorms National Park next weekend and you happen upon a large group of diverse women on bikes, it won’t be a surprise as to why they are there.
