A new documentary, In the Dirt, presents mountain biking as a path toward personal growth and community resilience. It recently screened in Cortez, Colorado, to an audience of more than 100 people.
Navajo lands are marked by geographical vastness and limited infrastructure. While there are no bike shops on the Navajo Nation's 27,000 square miles, bikes are becoming more than just modes of transportation.
Gregory Bahe is a Navajo cycling coach and parent. In an interview in the documentary, he spoke about his children’s love for cycling.
“I've been trying to tell my kids, ‘Live your life; you're not promised tomorrow,” said Bahe. “That's what makes you strong; you just got to keep moving forward, don't give up.’ What they like to do is bike. That helps them relieve some of that stress and just the mental part of it. That's one of the things that we like to do as my family.”
Bahe is from Chinle, Arizona. His children, Owen and Emma, are featured in In the Dirt. They traveled to Cortez for the screening.
“The thing I love about biking is the community I ride with,” said Owen. “I like riding with them. It's a lot of fun. I like how it brings our team together.”
“I love that it connects me more with the outdoors because I just really love the outdoors, and looking at the scenery, and wondering where it can take me,” added Emma.
Owen and Emma ride with a Gallup, New Mexico, cycling nonprofit called Silver Stallion. It's comprised of more than 190 adult and children mountain bikers, many of whom are featured in the documentary.
Some of the riders shared their motivation for cycling at a panel following the screening.
Franklin Cook is from Fort Defiance, Arizona. He revealed that cycling helped him battle addiction.
“With my past addiction that I had with drinking and just hanging out with the wrong crowd, I just decided to pick up the bike again,” said Cook. “What I did was pedal it around, and it got the feeling out of me to not think about drinking and doing stuff again. I found a way to pedal away from trouble, pedal away from the alcohol, pedal away from the drugs, from the gang violence.”
Scott Nydam is Silver Stallion's director. He told the audience that he sees the growth of biking as part of a more significant movement. Nydam is working on a mobile bike shop that would travel to rural areas of the Navajo Nation.
“We're working on utilizing the existing health service ecosystem that is in this post-colonial state of which there is self-determination,” explained Nydam. “This project can add to that. This could scale. It starts here. We have attention from the industry.”
In the Dirt is on a nationwide screening tour. It hasn't yet been released on streaming platforms.
This story is part of Voices From the Edge of the Colorado Plateau. Voices is a reporting collaboration between KSUT Public Radio and KSJD Community Radio. It seeks to cover underrepresented communities in the Four Corners. The multi-year project will cover Native, Indigenous, Latino/Latina, and other communities across southwest Colorado.
Explore more Voices stories on the KSUT website.
