Social and mainstream media is awash with stories, slideshows and film clips celebrating “mountain mommas who rip” within weeks, sometimes days, of giving birth. But many new mothers have discovered those back-in-the-saddle success stories are not always the norm. Set up by the expectation of quick and uncomplicated recoveries and hampered by a lack of information available, women looking forward to returning to the sports they love are instead often finding further injury, frustration and depression.

Over the past five years, the Trans-Cascadia has become one of the Pacific Northwest’s most notorious events: a four-day, blind-format, backcountry enduro race, where riders barrel down a course they’ve never ridden, as fast as possible, on some of the region’s most challenging terrain.