Sarah Fabbro is a XC MTB Shred Girl IRL—And She Has Some AWESOME Advice!

Sarah Fabbro has been one of my favorite shred girls to watch over the last five years, as she’s gone from a shy 13-year-old to an amazingly confident, super rad freshman in college—and has stayed mountain biking at a high level the entire time! Here, she shares her best tips and talks about what kept her happy in the sport for so long. Hint: part of it is loving the ride, the other part is having an awesome crew to ride with!

“The best tip I received involving cycling and racing is to believe in yourself and your abilities before relying on others to believe in you.”

PS: you might recognize some of the girls in these photos—Sarah was lucky she found a crew of young girls who could grow up riding and racing together, and Erica Leonard and Soren Meeuwisse have already been featured as Real Life Shred Girls!

 

Why did you start riding bikes?

I started riding bikes because both of my parents loved it, especially my dad. It was a family activity we could all do together. I can remember when I was a toddler being pulled around in a trailer behind my Dad’s bike. I can’t remember a time when cycling wasn’t important in my life.

What was your favorite part?

My favorite part about cycling is the lifelong friends you make along the way. Some of the friends that I started out riding with are still the ones I go for bike rides with now.

What was the hardest part?

The hardest part for me was always trying to keep up with the girls I was riding with. There was a point when I first started off when all the girls that were a year or two older than me had their growth spurts before me. This made them faster than me and I was always getting dropped. Once I had my growth spurt it was much easier and made riding with the girls, (who now have become some of my best friends) my favorite part of the week.

What made you choose to focus on MTB?

I chose to focus on MTB because I loved the twists, turns, downhills, and of course the dirt!! When I was younger I started out on MTBs so all of my rides included lots of dirt. I also chose MTB because I love how fast paced everything is and how there’s never a slow moment in the race.

What was the best tip or trick you’ve ever been told?

The best tip I received involving cycling and racing is to believe in yourself and your abilities before relying on others to believe in you. I remember when I was new to racing the expert categories I was too focused on results and placing and found myself becoming too stressed over a sport that was supposed to be my favorite hobby. It was my mom actually that always told me I needed to believe in myself because I had put the training in, it was just my stress and worries that were holding me back.

Proudest accomplishment?

My proudest moment in cycling was my race at Nationals as a first-year junior. This is because I had a crash during the start of the race, and this threw things off quite a bit for me. Once I started back on my bike again I looked up and noticed I was last and could only see one girl ahead of me. This was hard, both mentally and physically, to get myself back into the race because it felt like the race was already over and it had just begun not even 2 minutes before. On the second lap, I was then stung by a wasp (for the first time!!!) so I wasn’t sure what was going on and my arm started to swell. Eventually, I was able to catch up and pass a few girls and I finished all three laps of the race, even though the race was not even close to how I imagined it to go.

 

Goals in cycling?

My goal is to start racing in the top range of girls in the U23 category at Canada Cups. Eventually I would love to be able to make my way to World Cups when I’m ready and compete against some of the best in the world. Another dream of mine is to do a crazy mountain bike stage race like the BC Bike race. I think it would be such an amazing experience and I would feel so proud of myself once I finished.

Advice for younger girls interested in riding?

My advice for younger girls would be to find a good group of girls to ride with because it makes starting out easier and more enjoyable. I loved doing group rides when I was younger with all of the other girls because we would all make each other faster and be competitive with one another, but still be very good friends afterwards.