Trek Gravity Girls 2010 Season Recap

2010 recap of the four Trek Gravity Girls; Jess Stone, Katja Rupf, Solveig Lindgren and Steffi Marth and their outlook for the upcoming 2011 season.

Freeride is booming – more and more girls are getting on the big bikes and riding the parks and trails around the world. Back in 2009, Trek already took note of this and established the first gravity team – for women only. The Trek Gravity Girls were born. The girls for the 2010/2011 squad are Jess Stone (20) from the UK, Steffi Marth (25) from Germany, Solveig Lindgren (33) from Sweden and Katja Rupf (29) from Switzerland. All four girls bring passion and enthusiasm to the table in order to experience and live the spirit of freeriding as non professional athletes.




Steffi started racing BMX when she was 12 years old and since that time she has structured all her life around training and racing. She left home and moved to a Sport school in 2003 to have better training facilities. Besides racing and training she´s studying architecture and gained the bachelor last summer. She started racing 4X four years ago and is now racing the complete 4X World Cup. She´s also enjoying freeriding, racing downhill and teaching youngsters and other girls how to ride.

UCI Ranking 4-Cross 2010: 7th place. German 4X Champion 2009,2010




Steffi's recap:
“2010 was the best year of my life so far. I achieved some results in racing which I did not even dream of before. My dream was to make some Top 10 results on the World Cup Circuit and ended up qualifying in the Top 5 twice, had five Top 10 results and made the first ever German female 4X Podium in Val di Sole (ITA) with a 5th place. This was definitely something that feels like a dream whenever I am thinking of it. Beside this I repeated winning the German National Title, got 5th at the European Championships and even won my first ever National Series BMX Race. My most surprising result was a Podium in Whistler at Crankworx in the Giant Slalom.

I could just never stop and think about how cool one race was when I was already making more awesome experiences. I traveled so much and even after the season I did not stop for the Winter like usual, but began to work as a Bike Guide on the Canary Islands which has made me ride my bike all year long. Now I'm still on La Palma enjoying some of the best trails on this planet every day. Physically I was well prepared for last season, but now I feel like my mountain bike and I are ONE and I can´t wait to see what that will bring for the 2011 season.“




Katja Rupf is in the middle of her business studies and manages the Trek C3 teamrider René Wildhaber. Coming from a strong XC race background as a junior, Katja is now enjoying the freeride side of the sport. Besides coaching at the Gravity Girls Camp, she could have been seen together with Ross Schnell and Renê Wildhaber in the Swiss bike film “VAST”.




Solveig Lindgren started mountain biking when she was living in Canada a few years ago. Now she is making her living as a Yoga instructor. Racing the iXS Cup in Germany and Switzerland and enjoying road trips to the best freeride spots in Europe and Canada.




Jess Stone previously played soccer for Crewe Alexandra Football club in 2007, who at the time were close to promoting into the Premiership league. She was selected to be on Standby for England U19’s and U23’s in July of 2007 at 16 years of age, but at this stage, she had begun mountain biking. Trying to find time to do both was almost impossible and the decision to leave soccer to pursue mountain biking was a tough decision, but she stuck with it. Having Tracy Mosley as her mentor, she already belongs amongst the fastest women on the planet.

2010 was a great year for Jess. Winning the University Boxing Novice Championship title, (and gained Worcester University Female Sports Performer of the year) she also rode her Session 88 to win the Elite Downhill National Championships title, 2nd overall in the Halo British Downhill Series and gained consistent top 15 results in the World Cup Series with her best result being 13th. And just a few days ago she won the Worcester 'Higher Education and Further Education Sport Award.

UCH Ranking DH 2010 16th place




Jess' recap:
“For me, 2010 was a very successful year. My main aims were to be consistent top 15’s at the World Cups, which I achieved and to gain as much experience as possible. I never had anticipated winning the Elite National Championship title, so to gain that has been absolutely amazing. I had gained a lot of experience throughout the racing season and I also had a lot of opportunities to ride in some fantastic places, and one which I will remember for years to come is our Gravity Girls photo shoot trip to Tenerife and Saalbach for our Girls camp. I have really enjoyed the 2010 season on my new team and I am looking forward to the 2011 season on the new Session 88 and for the years to follow on from that.”




Finally some shots of the girls from last season. Big thanks to Trek, Bontrager, Adidas eyewear and SixSixOne for making this team possible and supporting the girls.




Steffi, Jess, Katja and Solveig are looking forward to the 2011 season. A lot of racing and riding is in the pipeline. So come on girls, grab a bike and get on the trails. We wanna see more girls riding.


You can follow the girls on:
-Facebook
-Steffi Marth
-Jess Stone
-Trek Gravity Girls

Thanks for the pictures:
Andy Fricker, Trek Gravity Girls/D.Geiger, Jess Stone, G.Mascia, Ross Schnell, Steffi Marth, C.Capeller

Words by C.Capeller, Steffi Marth and Jess Stone