“I’m probably going to roll my ankle today,” laughs a man wearing sweatpants and a track jacket. He is obviously enthused about the prospect, and so is everyone around him.

The crowd is mixed — teenagers who look like they’ll be back in their high school classes the next day stretch alongside men with stubble and women in North Face jackets. Beginners warm up next to seasoned veterans. Everyone is jubilant, and they show their enthusiasm by leaping from parking bulkhead to parking bulkhead.

After a few minutes of creatively using small concrete barriers to stretch and get ready, the crowd — hailing from Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, Sacramento and of course Santa Cruz — looks around for a leader to show them what to do next. Calls of “Where’s Nico?” begin to replace the staccato rapport of sneakers on pavement.

Artem Chelovechkov vaults over a wall, preparing himself for impact.

Nico Moe, a recent UC Santa Cruz graduate, doesn’t disappoint, bounding down the Oakes steps only seconds after his name is called. Laughing and wearing a lemon-yellow T-shirt that reads “parkour connections,” Nico shepherds the crowd through Oakes and up the string of stairs that lead to the College Eight plaza.

Although most students complain their way up these steps, these people are different — they run up the concrete stairs on their hands and knees or vault over the handrails just for the challenge. These people are parkour artists, or traceurs, and they see the structure of the UCSC campus differently.

Parkour, simply put, is the physical discipline of moving from one point to another with the most efficient movements possible. The challenge is that things tend to be in the way. Though it’s difficult to pin down when parkour started, most agree that it was popularized immensely in the ‘80s and ‘90s by David Belle in France. The institutionalization of parkour is on the rise, with gyms popping up around the state and organized groups gaining prominence. Some practitioners think that swapping out concrete walls and rusty handrails for trampolines and gym mats can only help the sport, while others swear by the sport’s urban roots.

These meet-ups, known as parkour “jams,” take place once a month at varying locales and draw parkour clubs from around the Bay Area and Central Coast. Events like these are representative of the explosive growth of organized parkour, and parkour websites like Worldwide Jam and Planet Parkour act as congregating points for a sport that is truly global in its appeal. Parkour Planet, for example, uses Google Maps to help isolated parkour artists find one another and practice together.

Michelle Huffman, a representative for the Santa Cruz Sports Central Gymnastics Learning Center, thinks parkour is on its way to becoming a more recognized sport and acknowledges the usefulness of parkour gyms in that process.

“They [parkour artists] must develop a system of rules and skills that can be used internationally — their own language, if you will, just like any sport,” she said. “It has been a while since we have been able to watch a fledgling sport emerge, like the amazing rise of snowboarding. I’m really enjoying watching the process.”

As far as the Santa Cruz “jam” goes, the rules are fairly loose: More experienced parkour artists attempt difficult moves, and others take the initiative to try to copy them. It’s a little bit like the basketball game Horse, but with no penalties.

Tiphanie Gardner, seemingly frozen in time, leaps across two metal railings.

Though gyms may be useful for beginner parkour artists, perhaps part of the appeal of parkour lies in its “everyman” aesthetic — there’s no special gear required, and you don’t have to be a member of any special club to participate. Few things are easier on the wallet than a concrete wall and some enthusiasm.

“There’s no specific clothing. It’s all up to you,” said fourth-year Reno Nims, one of the founding members of the Santa Cruz Parkour Team.

Nims, who started the team about two years ago with UCSC graduate Moe, said there’s something about parkour that appeals to a wide variety of people.

“A lot of the time, it’s people who have this childish ambition to just play,” Nims said. “People are walking to classes, going to work. They don’t see the world around them as this place to play — they’ve grown up. The world around me is a playground. Santa Cruz is really good for that. There are a lot of people who are children at heart, and it’s really good for them [to do parkour].”

Though onlookers might be confused as they watch parkour artists haphazardly navigate urban landscapes, practitioners say there is a great deal of skill and training involved.

“Parkour is very much like a martial art — it’s about 30 percent physical and 70 percent mental. Parkour isn’t just about being able to do cool moves and jump over stuff. It’s about the mindset you have when doing it, about keeping the flow and moving efficiently with as little wasted energy as possible,” said Jacob Pernell, fourth-year student and Santa Cruz Parkour Team member.

Pernell said parkour is as much a state of mind as a sport.

“It’s about encountering challenges, obstacles and fears, and then being strong in yourself so that you can work through and conquer these things,” he said. “There’s definitely a huge philosophy behind the art of parkour, and this philosophy can be applied to every other aspect of life.”

Parkour is not a simple sport — there are multiple sub-categories within the sport, with parkour and “free-running” often being mistaken for the same thing. The nebulous history of how exactly parkour originated doesn’t help, either. However, some practitioners say the distinction between the two is unnecessary.

“There’s the internet definition that parkour is efficiency, and free-running is ‘tricking’ (showing off elaborate acrobatic moves), but I like the definition that the founders have gone out with recently — that there is no difference,” Nims said. “In each of them, the goal is to have complete mastery over your body’s motion. We’re all trying to do the same thing. We’re all after the same goal.”

Though a YouTube search for parkour tends to bring up images of European teenagers navigating the burned-out husks of Soviet bloc apartments with wild abandon, the sport is definitely evolving to fit more regimented practices. The UCSC campus is perfectly suited for cooperative creative movement and the members of the Santa Cruz Parkour Team know it.

Artem Chelovechkov, a member of the Santa Cruz Parkour Team, said there are definite benefits to training with others.

“The main reason to train with others is the creativity that comes out of it and you can help motivate each other,” he said. “Parkour is about self-improvement and growth, and working with others makes it an efficient and fun kind of self-discovery. Working in a group can help you measure your own improvement and learn from others, see the grey walls, rails, trees and stairs in a new way.”

Though there may be more structure to the group today, with organized groups coming from miles away to participate in monthly “jams,” Nims’ experience with parkour was less regimented.

“Most of my friends had done [parkour] for a while — they also loved this [wpNSC][video][/wpNSC] game, Mirror’s Edge,” Nims said. “I got sick one day and decided to play it. I got this sense of freedom from it, and I thought, ‘My friends do this. I want to do this in real life.’”

The representation of parkour-like activities in popular media is on the rise. In Electronic Arts’ Mirror’s Edge (released in late 2008), players control a character who is forced to navigate a dystopian urban landscape using only her acrobatic skills while evading police state forces. Reality shows like G4’s American Ninja Warrior, which is currently filming in Los Angeles, also bring this once-obscure sport to the forefront in popular youth culture.

This increased visibility may also have something to do with the growth of gyms that offer parkour classes and clubs that meet regularly to train, like the Santa Cruz Parkour Team. Vargas Academy in Scotts Valley now offers parkour classes for all ages, with videos on their site showing children ricocheting off foam-padded parkour bulkheads. Gone are the days when a search for “parkour” on YouTube only brought up grainy handheld-camera shots of urban decay and European teenagers.

Tempest Freerunning Academy, another parkour gym in Los Angeles, released a video of its Mario-themed practice area — complete with ball pit and brick-patterned foam blocks — set to a dubstep soundtrack, snagging almost 3 million views on YouTube from the time of publication.

In Santa Cruz, parkour has become much more organized than when Nims and Moe founded the team two years ago.

“I’ve actually started teaching a gym class in Santa Cruz,” Nims said. “I don’t want to be elitist, but I think the best way to learn is to be outside. Training solely in the gym, you get this sense of comfort, that you’re indestructible. Training in the gym and outside, you’ll see progress.”

Nims’ opinion of gym training is mixed.

“Out here, you can’t change anything. Out here, you need to adapt to the environment. In a gym, you’re creating your own challenges and moving stuff around,” he said. “It’s not a worse way to train, but it’s a different reality. If you want to use parkour usefully in a world where you can’t change the facts, you need to adapt to the reality of, ‘I can’t move that wall.’”

Despite the growth of organized parkour facilities, Nims said the future of parkour lies in a personalized blend of organized group training and solo experimentation.

“It’s all very individual,” he said. “People I teach can do moves that took a year to learn in just a lesson or two. I would suggest that people find a community that they can train with, but match that with their personal training. You want to learn your own style and what your body is capable of.”

Michelle Huffman of Santa Cruz Sports Central Gymnastics Learning Center said she looks forward to watching parkour grow as a sport, but people engaging in parkour aren’t necessarily competitive.

“I look at their practice the same way anyone would ‘practice’ the things they love to do,” Huffman said. “People ‘practice’ chess, poker, weight lifting, reading, riding bicycles, et cetera, for the pure enjoyment of the activity. Others train to compete.”

The Santa Cruz Sports Central Gymnastics Learning Center is where Nims currently teaches parkour, and is also where the UCSC gymnastics team trains. Huffman thinks training in a group environment is helpful for developing parkour skills.

“There is support and usually a grounding energy when engaging in an activity with a group as opposed to simply being ‘on your own,’” Huffman said. “As with any physical activity, there has to be a respect for the danger involved. Practice allows for the body and mind to develop that understanding of movement and its limits. When you practice with others — especially regularly — the collective reasoning power brings in new ideas for ‘old’ problems and can offer the ‘voice of reason’ if someone is not quite ready for a new skill.”

In the College Eight plaza, Moe tries to be that voice of reason, jokingly admonishing the gathered crowd for not warming up properly.

“I know no one likes to run, so we’ll do some non-running warm-ups,” Moe shouts from a crab-walking position. Laughter rises from the crowd. They had already been running and vaulting for close to 20 minutes, and Moe’s call to stretch comes off as a little after-the-fact.

Photo by Morgan Grana.

As members of the collected parkour teams do jumping push-ups down the College Eight steps and ramps, an older parkour artist who introduced himself briefly as James coaches a younger boy in proper warm-up form. After a few minutes of this, the boy gets distracted and asks if he can look at James’ iPhone.

“We’re watching reality — it’s cooler,” James replies.

People passing by seem to agree.

“Everyone who sees you is jealous of you,” yells a bearded passerby.

The parkour team laughs, shrugs and nods — none of them seem inclined to disagree.

Sophomore Cameron Ferguson discusses how Bay Area collegiate orienteering is hindered by a lack of support and the difficulty of getting to the remote locations for tournaments. Photo by Prescott Watson.

“Can you see the control from here?” asked UC Santa Cruz second-year Cameron Ferguson.

Standing on a knoll overlooking the sun-blasted valleys and hills of Pacheco State Park, Ferguson wiped the sweat from his face and scanned the landscape. After a moment broiling under the sun, Ferguson — oblivious to the heat — pointed to a tree a kilometer from his position. Squinting, Ferguson noted the tree’s position on his topographic map.

“It’s right there,” Ferguson said. As if on cue, three runners in the distance loped through the high grass toward the tree. Ferguson, already jogging down the knoll, called over his shoulder, “See?”

The sport is orienteering.

In a wilderness setting, participants use a topographic map and a compass to find “controls” — small markers that have an electronic register to record the time when a runner locates it. The controls can be placed several hundred meters to several miles apart. The goal is to find all of the markers in the correct order as fast as possible.

Half cross country racing, half wilderness survival, orienteering combines all the physical rigors of endurance athletics with the mental acuity of a chess game.

But despite an enthusiasm for racing and the wilderness, Americans have yet to make orienteering popular in the United States. Given the sport’s widespread popularity in Europe, enthusiasts wonder: What’s keeping orienteering off the map?

Jay Hann, an event coordinator for the Bay Area Orienteering Club (BAOC), said that it is sometimes difficult to explain the appeal of orienteering.

“It’s what you get when you cross mathematics and P.E.,” Hann said. “It’s hard to explain what’s fun about it — it’s a lot easier to explain when you’ve experienced it.”

The BAOC is one of 74 clubs in the United States that belong to the International Orienteering Federation. Each year, there are a multitude of international championships held for different types of orienteering, but the biggest ones are trail and skiing. In the United States, individuals compete in A-level meets to qualify for a spot on one of the U.S. championship teams.

On Saturday, Hann was organizing the second day of a three-day meet in Pacheco State Park for the U.S. Intercollegiate and U.S. Interscholastic Championships, which the BAOC was hosting.

Despite the swarms of participants streaming in from Seattle to West Point, Hann said this event’s numbers were nothing compared to those in Europe.

“In the big European events, they’ll have camera crews out in the field taking pictures of the runners,” Hann said. “They’ll have a big display board in their arena and have 1,000 or 2,000 people watching the video footage coming across.”

Gavin Wyatt-Mair, another event coordinator for the BAOC, said that because of the sponsorship given to orienteering in Europe, Europeans tend to dominate the United States in international orienteering competitions.

“We usually have some people go over there, but they kick our butts,” Wyatt-Mair said, laughing. “They are so much better than we are!”

However, Wyatt-Mair is the father of a successful navigator. His son, Malcolm Wyatt-Mair, is a U.S. orienteering champion and UCSC graduate who competed in Australia and Sweden for the Junior Orienteering World Championships in 2007 and 2008.

For Gavin — who has been orienteering for 24 years — orienteering has practical value off the course as well.

“When you are in a job, you have to make decisions quickly,” he said. “Orienteering teaches you how to make quick decisions. It also teaches you to focus on a goal — your next control — teaching you to focus on it and get there in the most direct way.”

For the few college students who do orienteering on the West Coast, the benefits of the sport are outweighed by the logistical troubles of reaching a meet.

“You have to get to these different state parks around the Bay Area, and most college kids don’t have cars,” Ferguson said. “If it were big in the states, it would be big among college kids, because then colleges would take buses to the events.”

BAOC coordinator Hann said orienteering has the potential to catch on as a popular sport in the United States, but that would require teaching orienteering early on in schools.

“We’re trying to figure out ways to make it easier for P.E. teachers to do it,” Hann said. “It’s kind of a mind sport, and there are a lot of things about it you can’t tell people through photographs.”

Taking a break from helping a few dozen latecomers register for their races, Wyatt-Mair described the philosophical benefits of orienteering.

“One of the things that occurs in life is that you’re going to get lost, and it occurs in every aspect of your life,” Wyatt-Mair said. “Orienteering teaches you to relocate. And when you do that, it’s a wonderful experience because you say, ‘Yeah, I was lost, but I’m going to find my way out.’”

Ryan Murphey scales the sheer cement wall next to Thimann Labs. In a few short seconds, he’s up and over the wall, making it look effortless. Photo by Andrew Allio.

A student who walked out of his class was interested in the group, and decided to make the “long-short jump” after practicing with others. “Please don’t die,” Reno Nims pleads. Photo by Andrew Allio.

Next to the sea lion statue on Science Hill, there is a pair of staircases — but for Artem Chelovechkov, they are more than just steps. Flying across them at a height of about 10 feet, he will prove to himself that obstacles can be overcome. A few spectators stop by to see what, to them, might seem physically impossible.

“Parkour is my way to be free,” said second-year Merrill student Chelovechkov. “I enjoy the moments when you reach a gap. It’s a way to get away from everything.”

Movement is the word that best describes parkour, a sport created in France in the 1980s. It is not only about jumping up walls and climbing back down them — it requires a lot of strength, versatility and guts.

UCSC’s parkour club originally started four years ago when a group of friends decided to start climbing walls and doing jumps. It wasn’t easy at first, but gradually the group started successfully surmounting more and more of the obstacles.

“We watched some videos on YouTube and then decided to go out and try some jumps,” said Crown fourth-year J.D. Stockford. “If we failed, then we would go back and see the video and try again.”

Over the last few years, the club has become bigger and better. What started as just a way to imitate difficult jumps transformed into a club interested in building up strength and ability to do new tricks. Right now, the club has around 20 members, or traceurs, as they call themselves.

Ryan Murphy, first-year Cowell student, is a new member of the club. However, he has been practicing parkour since his second year of high school. To him, the sport is a guide for facing everyday challenges.

“The physical obstacles that you overcome in practice and training will manifest themselves as obstacles that occur in your life and that you get over in your life,” Murphy said.

Unlike many other sports, parkour is not a competition but a discipline, and as such, the the only competitor is oneself. Parkour has no definite rules.

“It is open to interpretation,” Murphy said. “You can interpret obstacles however you like and interact with them in your own way.”

UCSC’s parkour club is part of a bigger community: San Francisco Parkour, a fellowship that holds gatherings for parkour clubs all around the Bay Area. Once a month, the organization holds a meeting at which all the clubs can come together to learn more about the sport. UCSC has hosted one such event.

Because of its newcomer status, parkour lends itself to the close-knit community, but also to an openness for any and everyone to participate. Unlike baseball or football, parkour does not demand a specific training site. Instead, any place can become an obstacle or practice area.

The idea is that “any obstacle is not an obstacle. You can go over it and under it and through it,” fourth-year Reno Nims said.

Parkour club members keep discovering interesting places on campus where they can develop their moves.

And, Murphy said, traceurs have a saying: “The world is our playground.”

Photo by Nita-Rose Evans.

Dangling from a rock jutting out 100 feet above the ground, a chalky hand grips the side of a cliff face. The only thing between Nik Martinelli and the ground is a half-inch-thick rope and several pieces of gear shoved in the cracks in the rock, made of nothing but lightweight steel, springs and plastic. Martinelli gathers all his physical and mental strength and lunges for the next grab. He misses it by inches, and the ground rushes toward him.

He plunges for a terrifying — or invigorating, depending on your point of view — few seconds. The thick rope catches him, and for an instant he is flying, rappelling down the face of the cliff.

This may sound like a scene from a nightmare, but it is something that hundreds of avid rock climbers in Santa Cruz experience by choice.

“God invented rocks for me to climb,” Martinelli said. “And who am I to go against God’s will?”

The rock climbers of Santa Cruz are a community of adventure-lovers young and old who climb local rocks, boulders, and in the indoor rock climbing gym. Beyond community highlights such as the Pacific Edge Climbing Gym, Castle Rock State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains, and the Pinnacles National Monument, top-shelf climbing beckons to adventurers.

“Yosemite, the Sierras, Joshua Tree … there is world-class climbing just a few hours away,” said Mark Brower, the UC Santa Cruz senior recreation department supervisor.

“When you’re climbing, you are aware of the moment, you are in the present, so you feel so much more alive,” Brower said. “It’s a physical dance and a mental meditation.”

Pushing their physical and mental limits, these climbers go to the extreme to triumph the heights in Santa Cruz and beyond.

Life on the Edge

Rachel Fiske was afraid of heights. When her friends asked her to go to Pacific Edge Climbing Gym with them her freshman year, she kept turning them down.

“Eventually they talked me into it and I had so much fun,” Fiske said. “I went back three or four times that week.”

Now a third-year and an avid rock climber, Fiske considers climbing a part of her life. She goes to Pacific Edge a few times a week with her friends.

Diane Russell and Tom Davis, the gym’s owners, estimate that two-thirds to half the climbers at Pacific Edge are students from UCSC, Cabrillo, local high schools, and other youth programs.

Russell and Davis are very experienced climbers — Russell has been climbing for 30-plus years and Davis for more than 20 years — and both have climbed all over the world. Between the two of them, they have climbed on five continents.

Russell forms her life around climbing.

“It becomes a lifestyle,” she said. “I form my whole life around it. I plan vacations around it. It’s fitness, community, and adventure. You can climb any place in the world.”

Russell has climbed in Europe, Asia, Mexico, and all over the United States. She still wants to go to Thailand to climb limestone-lined beaches.

“It’s an incredibly engaging thing,” Russell said. “You’re also engaging with the world by climbing stunningly beautiful places.”

Back in the gym, climbers of all ages test themselves against rocks of varying difficulty. The differing colors of the holds signify the difficulty of the climb. A 10-year-old kid climbs sideways across the bouldering area, while a trio of middle-aged men take turns belaying each other on the top-rope.

“The draw of the sport is the excitement and the adrenaline,” Russell said. “People initially come because they are drawn to adventure. Once they get here, it’s about community, fun, getting stronger, and solving puzzles with your body.”

Davis and Russell opened Pacific Edge in 1993. It was the second rock climbing gym to open in California.

“Twenty years ago, there weren’t any climbing gyms. They helped make the sport more popular,” recreation supervisor Brower said.

The gym also hosts practices for the American Bouldering Series in the fall and the Sport Climbing Series in the spring. These two different competitions are for kids aged 12 to 17.

Joaquin Nagle, a Pacific Edge employee and coach for the American Bouldering Series, said four kids from Pacific Edge qualified for nationals last year. Mid-explanation, he paused to suggest a good side hold to a fellow climber.

“Climbing is good cross-training for other sports,” said Nagle, who is also an avid Ultimate Frisbee player. “It’s a way to trick yourself into exercising.”

In the training room, Nagle demonstrated the various types of holds and the cornucopia of strange names to express them: there’s the pocket crimper, finger stack, hand jam, ring locks, toe jam, foot jam, side pull, pinch, jug, under hang, hand jam, and many more.

Photo by Kathryn Power

The Climbers

In high school, Nik Martinelli worked in a hardware store. He also fell in love with climbing. Somehow, he managed to convince his parents to let him combine these two skills in a very unconventional, creative way: he built a climbing wall on the side of his two-story house.

“They didn’t think it would be a reality,” Martinelli said. “They thought it was just one of my crazy ideas. They were surprisingly okay with it.”

Now the president of the Santa Cruz backpacking club, Martinelli just got back from leading an OPERS snow camping trip — teaching adventurous souls to build igloos, make fires in the snow, and dig snow caves. Usually he goes climbing indoors about three times a week and ventures to Castle Rock or Joshua Tree when the weather permits.

“Anything outdoors, I’m there,” Martinelli said. “I love knots and the technical aspect of climbing. It’s a physical and mental challenge. It’s rewarding to be completely exhausted and come back from a day of climbing with your buddies having conquered some rock. So few people get a chance to experience it.”

Martinelli also emphasized the importance of adventure, not just in a physical sense, but on a social level.

“Rock climbing gives me a chance to go to places I wouldn’t visit normally and meet really awesome people,” Martinelli said.

Newer climbers fall in love with the sport almost immediately. Dangling above a huge drop, the only thing holding you up besides the rope is your own strength — the adrenaline and the endorphins pump through your body like a helium into an inflating balloon. New climbers are drawn not only to the physical excitement of climbing, but also to the daring, supportive personalities that dangle alongside them on their perilous climbs.

After attempting a particularly difficult heel hook, a move in which the heels are swung up above the head and used as leverage to pull the climber up the boulder, Sam Kraus was contemplating his third attempt at the tricky course when he stopped to talk. He started climbing just three weeks ago and is already in love with the sport.

“These are all puzzles that can be solved,” he said, stopping to brush chalk on a handhold.

Solving the puzzles of bouldering results in just a short plummet to whomp — or fall gracefully, depending on your style — on a crash pad just a few feet away. When top-roping, however, the fall lasts much longer, until the rope pulls tight to catch you. For some, falling is exhilarating, but for others it’s frustrating and scary.

“Just because you fall doesn’t mean you’re failing,” said Lauren MacDonald, a UCSC creative writing student. “It means you’re trying.”

MacDonald got into climbing nine months ago and now considers it a huge part of her life. She draws connections between the physicality of climbing and the deeper psychological aspects of the sport.

“It’s extremely mental and emotional,” MacDonald said. “If you’re not in your mind-space, it’s hard to perform. It’s easy to take fear, embarrassment and nervousness and flip it into something you can use.”

Some climbers find their mind-space outdoors, drawing on the connection between body and nature.

Teresa Miller, a OPERS recreation leader of backpacking, river-rafting and mountaineering trips, encourages students to try outdoor climbing.

“Backcountry climbing is a place you feel so far out. You feel so vulnerable and there’s all this wind in your face,” Miller said. “You feel really small, and that’s empowering. Seeing yourself do stuff you thought was impossible is addicting and rewarding.”

Beyond the physical strength built through climbing, nonphysical benefits are endless, recreation supervisor Brower explained.

“It’s a way to build confidence,” he said. “Learn about how you react, how you are in different situations. You feel like you’re going to die, but you take that and use it to your advantage. Climbing allows you to find clarity and learn about yourself.”

On any given OPERS rock-climbing trip, instructors will teach skills in belaying and climbing technique, but the rest is up to you. What a new climber learns that first day on the rock is that willpower is everything. The real obstacle is not the rock itself, but rather something within. When climbing up the side of a cliff, the true test is not of your body, but rather of your mind and inner strength. Do you trust yourself enough to make the lunge?

“Awesome Land: Women of Dirt,” a film about female mountain bikers, is the culmination of the two-day Santa Cruz Mountain Bike Festival this weekend. Photo by Isaac Miller.

For the Mountain Bikers of Santa Cruz, mountain biking isn’t just a hobby — it’s a lifestyle and a community. This weekend, members of MBOSC intends to share their passion with the rest of Santa Cruz in the biggest event they have ever held.

On Saturday, Feb. 27, the Santa Cruz Mountain Bike Festival will set its wheels in motion, focusing on the growing prominence of women in mountain biking. All of the proceeds will go to the Soquel Demonstration Forest, a favorite haunt of the county’s mountain bikers.

MBOSC is a local nonprofit organization and advocacy group that organizes group rides and club trips, provides volunteer work to build new trails, and raises money for local mountain biking locations.

President Mark Davidson exemplifies the organization’s dedication to the sport. Davidson met his wife mountain biking, and has a daughter who bikes as well.

“I love bikes,” Davidson said. “… I love the sport. Just being part of mountain biking and the mountain bike community is really rewarding.”

The festival begins with a group ride in Soquel Demonstration Forest on Feb. 27 and culminates with the California premiere of the film “Awesome Land: Women of Dirt” at the Rio Theater on Feb. 28.

Other activities will include bike demos and raffles. The festival will feature professional women bikers Lisa Myklak, Emily Johnston, Tammy Donahugh and Kathy Pruitt.

For Davidson, mountain bike enthusiasts make up a tight-knit community, which is necessary when planning the MBOSC’s largest event yet.

“This is the biggest thing that our organization has put on,” Davidson said. “It is going to kind of be a breakout for us, so it’s pretty exciting. The bike industry, local bike shops and local businesses have really rallied around this event.”

Mountain biking has traditionally been dominated by men, but Davidson is seeing more and more women drawn to the sport and hopes the event will encourage even more women to join in.

“A lot of new mountain bikers I’m meeting are women,” Davidson said. “[Our events] are focusing specifically on women mountain biking.”

Lisa Myklak is one of the pro mountain bikers featured in the film “Women of Dirt.” The documentary follows 11 women mountain bikers and expresses their dedication to the sport. Myklak, as well as three other pro riders, will be present at both the group ride in Soquel Demonstration Forest and the film premiere.

Myklak was put in touch with MBOSC in order to promote “Women of Dirt,” and she is confident that the film will encourage more women to give the extreme sport a try.

“I remember watching guys put in videos constantly,” Myklak said. “I think [the film] is going to have a great influence on women’s [mountain biking] because now they can see some women riding.”

The film’s final sequence takes place in Santa Cruz, establishing the town as a prime location for mountain biking. Davidson said that those familiar with the trails will definitely recognize some of the locations in the film.

“The film ends in Santa Cruz, so people who ride in Santa Cruz will recognize some of their favorite trails and favorite spots,” Davidson said.

Myklak is excited about this weekend’s events, and anticipates relaxing after all the hard work she put in to organize the event and promote the film.

“I’m looking forward to sitting down and watching the movie and seeing other people’s reactions,” Myklak said. “I’m just looking forward to riding with people.”