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Experience Guatemala’s Women-Led MTB Culture in ‘Sight Unseen’

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The latest installment to the ‘Sight Unseen’ series follows Pivot Cycles athlete Brice Shirbach on an eye-opening and visually stunning trip to Guatemala.

Watch Brice Shirbach travel to the Guatemalan mountains to meet with World Ride founder Julie Cornelius, cruise wild trails, and experience its women-built MTB culture firsthand.

World Ride builds bike “libraries” for women throughout developing regions. Why? Because having bike access opens the door to so much beyond transit. A bike is a means of self-sufficiency and recreation.

And thanks to the organization’s female mountain bike guiding programs, riding can even become an empowering career. “World Ride [believes in] the long-term vision of helping create more opportunity for women,” Cornelius explained.

“‘Sight Unseen Guatemala’ with World Ride was a no-brainer,” said Shirbach. “The destination took [our] deep commitment to discovery to new levels. It was a profound experience for all of us, and it’s obvious why World Ride is in Guatemala. It’s so much more than the trail.”

“Today is the day that Sight Unseen: Guatemala goes live. It’s a 10 minute short film so I’ll keep this brief-ish,” Shirbach wrote on social media. “I have always loved making this series, but I’ve also felt like we’ve only really scratched the surface of what it could be. This one is different. I think that this kind of concept requires letting the adventure breathe, and we did just that in Guatemala.”

This short was produced by Pivot Cycles with Julie Cornelius and Brice Shirbach; with photography by Kevin Horstmann and videography by Drew Bennett.

Runtime: 10 minutes

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