Mountain biking’s elitist culture has long excluded adaptive athletes, but these mountain bikers are building community, riding for their right to belong, and proving that biking is more than a sport, it’s life-changing: joy on two wheels that should be open to everyone. So we’re making a short documentary film to celebrate cycling in a less conventional form. But we need your help to finish it; support the project on Kickstarter!
Here’s more info on the film.
What Adapt(ive) Is About
Mountain biking is more than just a sport—it’s freedom, adventure, and community. Anyone who’s experienced the joy of speeding downhill, pushing to a summit, rolling confidently off a drop or cruising through the woods–slow or fast–knows what a balm for the soul cycling can be. Mountain biking is fun. It’s revelatory. It’s exciting. It’s impossible not to smile as you cruise on hero dirt. But many individuals, including adaptive riders, often don’t feel welcome on trails where so few people look and ride like they do.
That’s because since the birth of mountain biking, the sport has appealed to, catered to, and been advertised to a very specific type of person. Non-disabled men–mostly white–ride, shred, climb, do extreme stunts, and film it to dazzle audiences. Over the years, this has created not only the perception that mountain biking is a spectator sport, unwelcome to those who don’t fit that mold, but that in order to call yourself a mountain biker you have to send it on equally extreme lines.
This false standard, combined with a lack of diversity in advertising and among brands–not to mention all the additional barriers to entry adaptive riders face, like exorbitantly priced bikes, trails that can’t accommodate wide wheel bases, and transportation issues–means many would-be cyclists don’t venture far on bikes or don’t venture out at all. They lack the community we all crave to make us feel safe and welcome in the sport.
So this documentary won’t be another compilation of sick stunts and epic jumps. It will be a celebration of the riders finding joy in mountain biking and community. Adaptive riders involved with Northern Utah’s Ogden Valley Adaptive program will tell stories of the unique individual barriers they face and the joy they find in pushing past them.
It will showcase the joy riding brings, the lives it has impacted, and how mountain biking is for everybody, no matter their physical ability.These riders are claiming their rightful place in the sport, building community, and proving that bike trails are for everyone. They don’t just challenge stereotypes—they create new paths for those who come after them. We will also highlight Ogden Valley Adaptive and how organizations like this redefine possibility. Their stories will remind us that the heart of mountain biking isn’t about competition—it’s about adventure, connection, and the pure, simple joy of the ride.
Through engaging cinematography and intimate interviews, this documentary invites audiences to experience the sport through a new lens—one that shows everyone has a place in this sport and every ride is a celebration of diversity, resilience, and the love of mountain biking.
How We Plan to Tell the Story
We won’t be telling the story as much as allowing adaptive riders in Northern Utah to tell their own, then showing what joy biking brings through exciting visuals, tales from the trail, and on-the-ground and from-the-air cinematography.
The adaptive mountain bike program founder from Ogden Valley Adaptive will share why the organization exists and what it does and several riders will share stories of how they got into biking, what it’s meant in their lives, and how they rip trails and enter races they never thought possible.
Interspersed will be imagery of riding trails, rolling around berms, learning new skills and experiencing the joy biking brings.
The Birth of the Concept
The idea for this project came about during the summer of 2024 while attending a mountain bike film festival where only 2 out of 10 films were by and about anything other than able-bodied white men in high-octane action sequences. This was discouraging, especially as we know many riders who love the sport not only don’t fit that “typical” mold, but never intend to compete for a place on a podium or fly over a gap jump.
This experience spawned a desire to tell a different story: of the underrepresented and underappreciated riders who regularly take to trails around the country. We wanted to tell the story of adaptive riders, folks who rarely get time in the spotlight, so we could showcase what a diverse community biking is and simultaneously encourage others who don’t fit the “mold” to get out and experience the joy of mountain biking.
We are passionate about mountain biking and inclusivity in outdoor sports and want to encourage these passions across the community while encouraging the industry as a whole to broaden their view of what mountain bikers look like.
How Funding Helps
This film project is well underway. In fact, footage has all been shot, interviews recorded, and local trails ripped. Huzzah! Meaning Adapt(ive) is in its final stages: editing and distribution.
Meaning funding will allow us to hire an outside editor and cover the costs of some specialized gear required. And of course, we will be personally donating 10% of all money raised for the final film to the featured adaptive organization.
By backing this project, you’ll be supporting the mission to celebrate mountain biking in more than it’s traditional form, showcase that the sport isn’t just for one type of rider, and encourage more adaptive adventurers to find a way to get on their own bikes and ride!
When it’s complete, we plan to submit it to local Utah film festivals, mountain bike film fests, and other adventure and outdoor film fests in order to spread the message that all riders should be welcome on trails, so funding will help cover submission fees.
But perhaps most importantly, you’ll be helping share the realities and joys of adaptive riding with all types of mountain bikers and show that trails can be enjoyed by all.
Where To Watch
So once this film is complete, where can you see it?
First, we plan to submit it to to local outdoor and mountain bike film festivals around Utah, then beyond. We plan to partner with bike shops for promotional showings.
After that, if a streaming service or similar doesn’t opt to purchase the film for distribution, it will live on YouTube for the world to see.
We also hope to turn this short film into a longer documentary project celebrating all types of underrepresented communities in mountain biking in the next year or two!
Meet The Filmmakers
So far, the team is two: a dynamic duo with combined decades of journalism, video production and editing experience.
Alisha McDarris is a documentary filmmaker, journalist, blogger, and YouTuber. She’s been a journalist since 2005, in the outdoor industry specifically since 2018. She specializes in sustainability in all its forms, outdoor recreation, conservation, travel, and science. A passionate mountain biker, her goal with much of what she creates, including this documentary, is to help make the outdoors more welcoming, accessible and equitable for all.
Josh McDarris is a documentary filmmaker, video editor, and producer. He’s worked in all these roles in the video production industry since 2012. His passion for the outdoors, sustainability and equal access–not to mention his skills behind the camera and in the editing chair–are what made him want to create this film.
Together, they’re the creative team behind the website and YouTube channel Terradrift.com, which highlights how to enjoy the outdoors more sustainably via gear reviews, destination guides, how-to’s, inspiration and more.
