Hometown: Mesa, AZ

Current Residence: Down by the river.

Years riding: 6 years

Sponsors: Loose Riders, Atomik Carbon, Five Ten, DVO, Maxxis, Trucker Co

Favourite trail/spot: This is a tough one, for Freeride: Virgin, UT. Bikepark: Whistler, BC. Trail system: either Big Bear, CA or Flagstaff, AZ.

Roadside bounty score with a tree climbing bonus on the Big Island of Hawaii!! Photographer: Ryan Rodriguez

You’re a desert girl. You live as close as you can to the riding spots and ride all the time. What is your favourite thing about being so close to the trails? First thing that comes to mind is that I just love being in nature so much more than in a city. I also like just being able to ride from my van without having to drive anywhere. Without having a full time job to tie me down to one place, why not live next to the trails?!

Riding the desert is different from riding anywhere else. How would you describe it to someone who has never been? Virgin, UT is a pretty special place. It's like a freeride playground, the scariest one you will ever see, haha. The dirt is like magic sand somehow perfect for building, just throw a little water on it. That area of Utah just has the perfect combination of ridges, cliffs, rocks, and steeps. Oh, and I shouldn't forget there’s views in every direction that belong on the cover of National Geographic. I do catch myself sometimes, paused halfway up a ridge just staring at the beautiful landscape, its just captivating.

All eyes on Chelsea as she pins it to 2nd place at the Nevada State Champs. Photographer: Jerry Walton

Watching Rampage must be awesome! Any aspirations to do something like this? Maybe Formation 2020? Rampage is a pretty incredible, intimidating event. I would definitely sign up if a Women's Rampage event was created! Formation seems like a cool thing to get involved with, I'd love the opportunity.

Um, I’d say that’s Rampage worthy!! Chelsea sending a huge Rockville road gap. Photographer: Sanchez Hubbard

Van Life!! It’s the way you rock this world! Best and worst thing about van life, and/or a funny story. Hmmmmm, one thing I really love about living in a van is always having everything with me. Nobody loves packing, so having all my belongings with me all the time makes it so easy to go on random ski trips or climbing trips. The one thing that can be draining is finding a good spot to sleep, if in an a new city. I may be a bit more picky on my parking spots than most, and I have definitely driven around for hours before just trying to find a spot to sleep.

Famous Highland Bike Park Gap. Photographer: Jeff Basins

Your also and avid traveller, which place took your breath away and/or holds a special place in your heart? I really love Thailand. I traveled there for the first time in 2015 mainly for rock climbing. It was my first time traveling out of the country and just fell in love with the people, food, culture and landscape. Just a great place.

Favourite bike competition that you have travelled to. I would have to say the ICE Enduro in Thailand. Aside from all the things about Thailand I already mentioned, they have a really passionate MTB community. The race is really fun.

One footer on the Big White Bronze Women’s Slopestyle event. Chelsea threw a backflip, but over rotated and crashed on the landing, here’s to stomping it this year!! Photographer: Clint Trahan

You recently hurt your foot, (good story…?) How is the recovery going? Sadly the story isn't even that exciting. I was jumping the airbag on my DJ so I could start working on backflips again and on my third jump I landed sideways and SNAP! No fun. It is actually my first broken bone and first surgery, 1 plate and 6 screws. So far I'm doing well, just trying to keep up with my stretching and exercises, anxiously awaiting an x-ray on 5/1 to get cleared to walk on it without the boot. I was hoping to get some physical therapy in but Covid-19 has thrown a hitch into a lot of things. So for now I'm just trying to resist eating too much pizza!

Suicide no hander at the Shimano Air Bag in Virgin Utah. Photographer: Someone else who was there.

Ride buddies are pretty awesome to have and you have a pretty solid crew. How does that affect your riding? I do feel really lucky to be surrounded by so many talented, passionate riders. Seeing my friends push themselves makes me want to do the same and I think riding with friends helps develop style as well. I may see a friend do some little maneuver and try to copy.

Bet she jumps bigger and climbs higher than you!! Giant Sequoia Ascent that took a week to climb!! Wow, that’s hardcore and so cool!! Photographer: Jared O’Brien

You got a pretty new bike and sponsor. Who is it, and how stoked are you? Specialized! Did that really happen? I'm still pinching myself. Im sooooooooo stoked!! I really can’t wait to get back onto two wheels!

Any race or competition plans? I had a lot of plans for this summer but of course my broken ankle threw a wrench into everything, then Covid-19. I think we are all wondering the same thing. When will everything get back to normal? Hopefully at least by August events can happen again. Then maybe it will be, how many events can we cram into 3 months?

Heading up Ass Slap Alley At the TDS Enduro. Getting some!! Photographer: Aarons Lesieur

Something fun, quirky interesting fact about you? Lets see... I've done some pretty cool things. I believe it was 2015 a friend and I set out to climb a giant Sequoia. We are both arborists and rock climbers so we went into it with the experience needed to make it happen. We made the trip to California mid summer and found a tree that we thought was a good candidate. Believe it or not it took us about a week to get to the top. It is amazingly hard to get a rope into a tree with the lowest branch being 100ft up. Then trying to climb branch to branch when they are over 20ft apart and 4ft in diameter with bark more slippery than a banana peel on ice. About half way up we set up a hanging camp, the branch our porta-ledge was hanging on was over 12ft in circumfrance, bigger than most trees in a forest. We slept up there 2 nights before having to flee a thunderstorm on the third night. We were able to reach the top of the tree for a pretty epic view, our guess is the tree is over 300ft tall.

Such a unique objective, an arborists/climbers dream in sunny California. Photographer: Jared O’ Briens

Any shoutouts? My family has always been really supportive of all my endeavors and I feel super blessed that I have them. Then of course I have some close friends and my boyfriend that are always there for me. I’ve also been shown a lot of kindness over the years by mountain bikers. Whether it was a hand-me-down tire, goggles or gloves when I was in need, or someone willing to teach me how to fix my broken bike. People have helped me a lot I’m pretty lucky!

You can follow Chelsea’s adventures on Instagram here.

Who Dat? It Chelsea Kimball