Vaea Verbeeck
A reigning queen
After coming off a stellar 2019, which included being crowned Queen of Crankworx and winning the Canadian downhill mountain bike championships for the third time, Vaea Verbeeck was heading into 2020 with a similar plan – focusing on the Crankworx World Tour, and some filming projects on the side, with a bit more freeriding and learning. She had just gotten home from two months of training, filming and racing in New Zealand when the pandemic hit Canada. Verbeeck says it came at a time when she’d usually have a bit of a break. With many events moved to the fall, Verbeeck is happy to be in B.C. for the summer months, hitting the local trails – and she’s already been involved in some local filming projects.
Was there anything that changed in your training and approach that you think contributed to all of your wins last year?
I think I just got a bit more comfortable working on my weaknesses. It’s one thing to work on your weaknesses, but it’s another to get the hang of doing that over and over and eventually becoming an expert at handling those skills. Once you get a good flow kicking in, it builds a really strong base and that’s where I was at last year.
Do you mind sharing one or two of those weaknesses?
The smaller the bike, the less experience I have on it. I used to really struggle riding my hardtail at the bmx track or pump track – mainly struggling to put in the time as I felt so bored of rolling around. I wasn’t skilled enough to tackle technical lines and was getting tired of trying without noticeable improvement or speed. But over time and with experience, I got much better at gate starts. I got much better at pumping faster and more efficiently. I started doubling transitions, doing manuals on the easier transitions, until I could pick more difficult ones and overall build more speed, progress and more fun.
What was it like to work on the lines and chart the course at 2019’s Red Bull Formation?
That was a fun process. I first felt like I wouldn’t know how to figure that out, but once we were there and walking around, it seemed easy to read where I wanted to be and where to build our features. A lot of the bones were already there from it being a previous Rampage site, so we were able to pick what was a good start for us and where to add on. Each feature seemed like a big new challenge, yet doable, and I’m stoked that all the ladies on that line felt the same way about pushing themselves.
Do you think this event shifted perception in the industry for women?
I think a lot of people had been excited to see women come out on a Rampage-style event. And I know a ton of people got really stoked to see Formation happening. I see it as a continuation of progress in our sport. That progress goes back a long way and this was just one more box to tick off.
In the preamble to Shimano’s Stillgrowing video, it says: “In order to break through to the next level, she had to take a step back and remember why she began racing in the first place.“Can you explain a bit about what that means?
Back when I raced downhill World Cups, I was trying hard to get better results, better sponsors’ support, and went through a whole lot of injuries and setbacks, which made my career progression quite bumpy and frustrating – to the point where it wasn’t exactly fun anymore but rather stressful and upsetting. I had to question whether it was worth putting all my savings into something that was growing ever so slowly for me. After Stevie Smith’s passing, I realized that life was precious and worth living for the present moment. I needed to make a shift in my attitude, be more positive about the good and the bad, embrace it all as it is the way Stevie would, trust that bikes were my passion and worth going for. I started to be a little less strict with myself and my expectations, focused on enjoying the process and life in general, and progressively it just all came together better for me.