SARAH BACHER
My mom was a snowboard teacher and in winter I was always snowboarding with my friends. It just always felt like it was the thing I wanted to do. I started in snowboard cross but my body wasn't built for that discipline. Too light, too many injuries, it was a tough time physically and mentally. Then I found snowboard free ride.
In free ride it is like someone ripped up the rules. You can almost do what you want, perform the tricks you like, takes the lines you like. As long as you stay in the corridor the rest is up to you. It's liberating and each run is different. It suits me.
I’m currently one level down from the Freeride World Tour, which is the same as the World Cup in alpine skiing. Of course my goal is to make it to the Tour but each year only one girl gets to join. The competition for ranking points is tough but that's challange. To improve, to get better, to realise my ambitions.
I've always ridden, for pleasure and for training but it used to be a lot of MTB. Now I've switched more to road and for the endurance I need in winter, I enjoy it much more than running. You can go further, you can see more, you can discover endless new places.
Like with snowboard, for me riding is more about the feeling I get than the effort itself. The excitement of being outside, the risks in a descent, the decisions I have to take and the sense of ' légèreté', that lightness of spirit when everything is working together perfectly.
On a bike or a board, the mountains are always different. There’s always another way you can do things. In snowboarding and in cycling you can always pick another line.
Where I ride
Normally I ride at home in lower Austria or in Innsbruck. It always depends on what training I want to do. So for basic endurance I cycle by the river Danube and for more exhausting training I go into the mountains and try to get as much altitude meters as I can get.
What I ride
Anything and almost everything. Roads close to home, sweeps along the river, MTB in Schaldming or intervals as part of my endurance training regime.
Why I ride
In snowboarding and in cycling you go with the flow, you go wherever you want. I ride because I can pause and I don’t think about other things.
Tackling Kühtai, a Tyrolian wonder.
Snow has just started to whiten the top of Kühtai - a mountain which holds a special place in my heart and the perfect location for a pre-ski season climb.
THE WHITE VENTOUX
Climbing the infamous 'Bald Mountian' is tough in the best conditions. Sprinkle some snow and add some cold and the challenge becomes even more extreme.
BIKE TO SKI
At 1600m up, deep within the Mercantour National Park, surrounded by snow-covered peaks, the pick-up truck is being loaded two by two.
