After decades in the gnar, B.C. mountain biking royalty go beyond the extreme

NORTH VANCOUVER, B.C. — Betty Birrell expertly guides her mountain bike over an elevated wooden ramp, catching some air, then lands smoothly on a trail she’s ridden countless times before.

At 76, the local legend has spent three decades tackling the rugged slopes of Vancouver’s North Shore mountains, beginning in about 1993, when she says it was an anomaly to see another woman racing through the lush forests.

Birrell sums up those early days as “lots of gnar, lots of jank, not much suspension” — for non-riders, that roughly translates as steep, tight, rocky and generally sketchy terrain on bikes that were a far cry from today’s high-tech machines.

She’s still tackling some of the most challenging trails the North Shore has to offer, but after many years of mostly riding alone, Birrell has found community in the Shore Sirens, a group for women and nonbinary riders formed in 2023.

Shore Sirens president and co-founder Jessie Curell describes Birrell as an elite athlete who shows up “to shred almost every time,” not just enjoy the fresh air.

“Betty is the queen of the shore. She is the matriarch,” Curell says.

If Birrell is the queen of the shore, then Todd Fiander is the king.

Widely known by his mountain moniker “Digger,” Fiander has spent 40 years building trails and putting the area on the map for a worldwide audience.

Together, Birrell and Fiander embody the history of the sport on the North Shore, and after years on the extremes, they are also shepherding its future, helping to make it more inclusive.

They’ve been running into each other on the Shore for years. Birrell says she still gives Fiander “heck” for including a clip of her crashing in one of his classic “North Shore Extreme” videos, instead of showing her completing the first successful lap over his wooden roller-coaster feature dubbed The Monster.

That was about 20 years ago.

It was once “taboo” to build trails, says Fiander. He spent several years in exile from his primary domain, Mount Fromme, after he says officials with the District of North Vancouver told him in the 1990s that “the free ride was over” and to stop building trails.

But today, 65-year-old Fiander works with the North Shore Mountain Bike Association to maintain what have become destination trails for casual and professional riders alike.

“I’ve always wanted more people riding,” says Fiander, who helped found the association. “I do it for the young kids and the community.”

‘TRAILS FOR ALL’

The group’s mission statement is “trails for all, trails forever,” and executive director Deanne Cote says Fiander embodies that spirit.

The terrain Fiander sculpted gave rise to a distinct North Shore style of riding and helped chart a course for the development of the sport worldwide.

The North Shore is a rider’s playground, characterized by steep, rocky descents and imposing rock slabs, slick roots, logs, jumps and cedar bridges called “skinnies,” sometimes barely wider than a bike tire and metres off the ground.

Fiander is responsible for some of the most stomach-turning trails and features on the Shore, helping to inspire the distinct free-ride style that he describes as “just letting her go.”

But Cote says Fiander recognizes that’s not for everyone.

“He wants the kids to be out there, he wants the moms to be out with their kids. And so his style of building has evolved over the years as well,” she says.

Fiander says the North Shore has enough extreme trails.

“We need beginner trails where people can learn to ride and have fun and get out in the environment,” he says.

In recent years, Fiander has been augmenting trails for riders of adaptive mountain bikes, such as the classic Expresso trail, which he’s been making wider.

Fiander claims numerous mountain biking milestones, including building the first wooden ramp, ladder bridge, teeter-totter and roller-coaster features on any trail.

Birrell was the first person to ride that roller-coaster, The Monster.

She recalls riding one of her go-to trails when she came across Fiander hammering in the final nails on The Monster. She rode it twice as he filmed.

But on her third try, Birrell says she stalled and lost her balance and fell at the top of one of the high humps, dislocating her shoulder.

Fiander reluctantly helped put her shoulder back in place. It was the crash rather than Birrell’s two successful runs that made the cut in his video.

“I always have to razz him about putting the crash in the shot and not the actual riding,” she says.

Birrell says she was hooked right away when she started riding as a single mother in her mid-40s, racking up bruises and broken bones over the years.

“Mountain biking gave me that sense of freedom, that sense of autonomy,” she says. “We never talked about mental health back in those days really, but now, everybody does, and it’s true. It just cleans your soul and feeds your soul.”

It’s also the thrill and exhilaration, she concedes.

Curell, the Shore Sirens president, says Birrell is “hardcore,” seeking out steep and technical terrain and consistently pushing the intensity of group rides.

“She always wants to ride. The other day, she texted me, you know, out of 11 days she’s ridden nine days. This is in the middle of the winter.”

Birrell is no stranger to trail-blazing in extreme sports. A former professional windsurfer, she was among the first women in that sport to tackle Hawaii’s biggest waves.

While she has shared many laps with her son over the years, Birrell says she always felt comfortable mountain biking alone.

But Birrell says it’s been a “game-changer” to join the Shore Sirens.

“I spent so many years often having to ride by myself or with guys who aren’t necessarily, from my generation, very supportive,” she says.

“Even guys that were often, you know, like 20 years younger than me,” she recalls. “They wouldn’t want to say well done, or rah, rah, or good line or anything.”

Birrell says she’s found support with the Sirens, soaking in the energy of the group.

“I love it because it inspires me too,” she says. “You just feed off each other, you know, I show them that you don’t have to quit. You can keep going.”

Curell recalls interviewing Birrell for the Shore Sirens’ podcast called “Paradigm Shift” and asking the North Shore icon what community meant to her. “She said, ‘I never knew what the word community meant until I met the Shore Sirens.'”

“It’s a really beautiful thing to be able to give back to her, in terms of community,” Curell says, adding “she doesn’t realize, I don’t think, the impact that she has on us.”

She says Birrell is the epitome of what women can aspire to be in a sport often perceived as dominated by white men.

“All of the stereotypes of women riders as weak, as sexualized objects that don’t know what they’re doing, she blows it all out of the water.”

Curell says she’s seen Birrell forced to reckon with ageism, as some people who don’t know her don’t take her seriously when they see her on the trails.

“She’s obviously proving them wrong, but it’s work, right? To stand up for yourself.”

Birrell is breaking barriers and boosting inclusivity in the sport, Currell says, noting that is part of the Sirens’ mission to create a safe and supportive environment for all riders.

She has been a mentor with the Sirens, and she’s an ambassador at the indoor bike park on the North Shore, where she hosts weekly rides for people aged 50 and up.

Fiander, too, has his eyes on the future, even as he reflects on the past.

He says if you build something, you have to take care of it.

“I take great pride in looking after my trails,” he says. “I will look after them until I can’t go up there anymore.”

Marin County, Calif., may be known as the birthplace of modern mountain biking, but Fiander says the North Shore brought something different.

“They were riding their moms’ fat-tire bike down skid roads, you know, down logging roads,” Fiander says of the early exploits in California.

But on the North Shore? “We invented the trail.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 24, 2024.

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press