October 2024
A Different Kind of Summer - Coen Skrypnek
To start with some context, I started racing downhill when I was 11. I’m now 20, 8 pretty big years later of non-stop travelling during our Canadian summers to race my mountain bike. Minus 2020, which was a raceless year, not by choice.
It was an annual thing, nearly habitual for me and my family. Come early springtime my dad would typically plan the season out for me, whether it was booking hotels or race registration. Then our whole family would depart, some trips lasting a weekend and some lasting weeks on end.
Dad always navigated pretty much everything for me early on. While I'm hugely thankful for the support I received over the years from companies within the industry, the support I received during that time from my dad was the greatest support I could have asked for. Sometimes I wish I could shoot a message to my younger self, telling little me to be more appreciative of his old man.
When it came time and I held more responsibility, I took a lot of that work on myself. Growing up, having bigger goals in mind, I decided to venture over the Atlantic and give some races a crack on the world stage. My first season of racing overseas was entirely supported and managed by my parents, and without a doubt, I could not have gained the experiences and insights without their help and resources.
After that, my family needed to look after themselves and leave it to me to be accountable. Funding season after season of mountain bike racing, for 6 years summer after summer, is a lot. Racing downhill is an expensive sport. But it’s what we love and an investment worth pursuing. I’m forever thankful to have the support from them through all those years.
During that time, I lived on my bike, dawn till dusk literally year-round at our home in Squamish. We would get snow for a month or two deep in the winter, but that wouldn’t keep us off our bikes.
In the last two years of racing, during 2022 and 2023, the off seasons were hectic - Finishing high school, working full time to fund my racing, conducting fundraisers, still trying to be a kid, training every day, and looking for bike support. All the while planning and budgeting my seasons. Maybe yes, it isn’t a tonne of work. But for someone my age, it sure felt like it.
Those were two of the most important years of my riding career. Better yet, the most important years of my life so far. I nurtured some pretty valuable relationships within the biking community, including with the RAAW family, that helped me achieve some big goals. I learned more in that span of two years, through experience, than I felt I’d learned in a lifetime.
Without getting too sentimental here and to conclude all of that, travelling around British Columbia and the world on my bike, with and without my family, helped shape me into the person I am today. Between my best results on the world stage, to road trips with my mom, dad and sister, to sleeping on the floor of the airport in Milan, Italy after a race, and seeing what it takes to be the best while growing up racing with some of the world’s top racers, I could go on and on. But I think you get the point.
That brings me to today. The past year I attended university in pursuit of completing an undergraduate degree. Education is a pretty important thing in my family and it’s also a big investment. Taking a step back from racing seemed reasonable then.
I had a pretty big crash at the 2023 Lenzerheide World Cup and was lucky to walk away from it. The injury to my back forced me to take some time off at home to recover but also led me to reflect. Life is very precious and there are so many things I want to achieve that go beyond racing, even though racing played such a big role in my life and taught me so much.
Attending my first year of university was busy. Getting back into the books was a big adjustment after being off school for a year. Being away from home and living without my family was also something I had to get used to. But it continued to show me that my favourite thing to do was still ride my bike. School gets very overwhelming and riding was an escape. Whenever I had the chance, I’d go for a ride. Living in Victoria on Vancouver Island, there was a whole new range of trails to explore. Riding a different area every weekend was pretty amazing.
From Mt. Prevost to Sooke and Nanaimo. If you’re a mountain biker anywhere in the world, at least one of those spots will ring a bell. It’s pretty cool to start from scratch again, in a sense. Riding new places all the time will humble you. Not being a local and lacking that local knowledge will put you seconds behind your friends, who know the trails inside out. Moving over here and riding at this standard meant I was learning new trails for the first time again. It took me some time but I felt, towards the end of that first year, that I was getting the hang of the style of ‘island riding’.
This past summer I decided against taking any trips to race and to be stationed in Squamish for July and August. This was the first time in over eight years that I chose to stick around home for the season. At the end of the day I needed to work as much as I could to make money for school, and it turned out to be a very enjoyable time.
Training and riding countless hours in pursuit of a race season is great, don’t get me wrong. But, after doing that season after season, stepping back to take time to ride for yourself, purely for fun, helps you realise why you do what you do. Working as an evening floor manager at a restaurant gave me all my days to ride, explore and hang out with my family.
I don’t want to say I took Squamish and the Sea to Sky corridor for granted, but I did come to realise, yet again, that this place is absolutely incredible. To have an evening off work and to go out for a chill ride during our golden hour meant I was out riding some of the absolute best trails in the world, with some of the absolute best riders in the world. Ripping trails I could ride with my eyes closed, trails we built growing up, trails I trained on for racing, all within a 15-minute ride from my front door.
And if we weren’t riding, we’d be chilling along the Squamish River, on our dirt jumpers riding any local jump spot, mountaineering any mountain we could set our eyes on, or soaking up the summer in any way possible. Pickleball was an unexpected sport I really got into during my downtime. Who would’ve thought?! It's actually very fun and stimulating.
I had some huge rides in the summer with some really good company, and it felt amazing to have local knowledge of those trails after being gone, and feeling like a beginner, the prior seven months. I’d get a bit of FOMO while watching the live streams and checking the results of certain downhill races, especially the ones on tracks that I loved and had success on. The best way to get rid of that feeling was to ride. And I was lucky to have such accessible riding over the summer.
This summer showed me that fun on the bike doesn’t always mean racing. It can mean 2000 metres of climbing in one day, it can mean riding with the family, it can mean coaching little kids and it can mean being creative on the trails.
And to note, one of my favourite things to do on my bike is to film videos and get photos, and luckily with some connections I got to produce some pretty wicked media throughout July and August. Film and photography is a very cool way to show off creativity and riding via social media and I absolutely love it.
Taking a step back has also let me focus on other things. I enjoyed a lot of time with my family, I invested time working with my dad on some of his work projects, learned how to manage a restaurant at the busiest time of the year, got to visit my hometown, and lots more. It felt like things I almost could catch up on from busy summers prior.
In the end, the most consistent thing I’d always find myself reverting back to was going out for trail rides. Whether happy, sad, overwhelmed, or thankful, riding was the one thing I’ve always done that makes me feel full and content. It’s crazy how such an adrenaline-filled sport can make us so peaceful and teach us a lifetime of lessons.
Here I am now, back in Victoria and back in the books. The switch up to some proper routine is nice and it’s great to ride some of my favourite trails out here as well. It ain’t no Sea to Sky Corridor, but it’s pretty dang fantastic over here.