Drew Steusse Is the Builder’s Builder
It’s rare, but on occasion you come across a trail that has surpassed itself.
It has become its own entity, a living thing that isn’t just dirt, rocks, and elevation. Alive in the friendships it creates and in the sense of belonging it invokes.
To the people who know it, the trail has its arms open wide, ready to become whatever you need it to be. A weekend vent for some, a place for memories for others, and for one rider, the weight that tipped the scale.
"Hey, you and your friends built JZ’s, right? Yeah man, that trail is so cool that it was a big reason that I wanted to move here."
Drew Steusse was surprised by one of the town's newest residents, who awarded him the highest honor a trail builder could receive: A rider who wanted to move their life and existence close to the community and culture surrounding that trail.
"Yeah, me and my friends did; glad you got to ride it," The charismatic trail builder from Bellingham responded with the same stoke that has been his companion since those early years behind the elementary school building, jumping with his brother and his friends.
Whether it was a plastic kicker forming a step down or logs being hauled into a backyard tabletop, Drew Steusse was ever the builder. Emanating from his own backyard, his building projects made wider and wider circles around his neighborhood and the surrounding backwoods.
From Backyard Jumps to Professional Trail Building
Now at 24 years old, Drew is currently going between coaching and trail building as a profession. Together with his friends Andrew Blacketer, Aiden Casner, Rob Bonometti, Flynn Mogan, and Callie Waldschmidt, they have started Broken Tool Trails, which has already stacked up an impressive list of projects.
"Digging is my favorite form of art and expression. It has become central to my riding, and I definitely spend way more time digging than riding," Drew explains. "Largely because digging can be obsessive. You can become engrossed in a project and want to do nothing else but to ride the project, but the only way to ride it is to finish it. Couple this with the fact that you can dig in basically any weather at any time of the day with the right gear and mindset. Also, digging can be a great activity for recovery; I had a great time digging in a hard cast on my wrist."
There is no missing the determination that surrounds Drew, something that his friend Hannah Bergemann attests to.
"He’s out there all the time!" Hannah states animatedly. There seems to be no stopping him; be it rain, darkness, or winter, you can be sure that Drew moves through it, not with clenched fists but with an open mind and often with a smile on his face. "His attitude brings a sense of inclusiveness," Hannah reflects. "Our sport is inherently not very inclusive because it’s somewhat illegal, secret, and there are all these kinds of weird rules, but he brings this kind of genuine passion and attitude to it that makes everyone feel welcome."
Building Mountain Bike Trails for the Joy of It
For any trail builder, an open attitude can be a big ask, given that many trails are used by people who might not even know that what they ride was built voluntarily. The balance between committing all your energy to one building project and still allowing people to enjoy it on their own terms is something that Drew has learned to navigate with time.
"My main goal is to build awesome trails with my friends. I believe it’s really important, but can be hard, to build for this goal and only this goal. Some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten from many trail builders is 'I dig for myself, not you.' Kind of an odd response at first, but I think I’ve come to understand that more. Without that, you burn out and joy turns into a job.
Some builders love to share, and others are extremely secretive, but both sides of the spectrum are good. Personally, I really enjoy when people ride what we build as long as there is a level of respect.
So the second part of my goal is for people to have a great time riding what we build and hopefully help others grow as riders as a result."
How Trail Building Creates Mountain Bike Community
Working towards these goals for trail building, Drew has become an important part of his local community. The combination of his work and his persona has generated opportunities for great riding, but it also builds culture and meaning in a broader social context. It’s that positive snowball effect that most mountain bike communities dream of.
"He has inspired lots of people to pick up tools and start their own projects," Hannah explains. "They can see through his example how rewarding the process can be. He is always so stoked to share everything that he is building with everyone. He gets the most reward in seeing other people enjoying his work and sharing that with other people. It brings a lot of community feeling to this area."
Maybe this is where the answer lies to why some areas with great potential for a bustling MTB scene never take off in spite of checking all the boxes. There are certainly many factors that make a biking community thrive: riders, advocacy, allowance, and geography, to name a few.
Not uncommonly, one of these might stand out as the driving factor that carries the momentum of the project. You don't necessarily require 3,000 vertical feet to build a bike park or a trail network, and as seen everywhere, sometimes you don’t even need permission. But what you always need is a hand, a tool, and a vision.
Finding Purpose Through Trail Building
A lot of times these hands work quietly on the outskirts of the community, tucked away in the backwoods or on somehillside that hides great potential. A peaceful craft that can be more than just getting the work done, as Drew reflects.
"Digging is a beautiful combination of primal and modern. Working with your hands in the forest, really getting in tune with everything around you, but with the overarching goal to ride expensive, precision-tuned machines. Building also eliminates boredom, gives me purpose, motivation, and confidence to pursue other new things in my life."
"The challenge seems to help me think. It’s also a great teacher of many things like mindset, hard work, patience, respect for the forest around me, and determination, and it is the only gym for me."
Unfortunately, this insight and passion for trail building was not easily won. In June 2021, a defining event occurred that has shaped Drew as a person and as a builder equally.
JZ’s: A Mountain Bike Trail Built in Memory of a Friend
Earlier that spring, he had been out in the woods with his two friends, Jackson Zechnich and Andrew Blacketer, scouting an old jump long since abandoned amongst the ferns. Spirits were high as they had even brought a rocket stove and shared their meal with a single fork while envisioning a trail with the lost jump in the midst of it. Plans were made, and the trail was scouted and routed. The three of them headed towards college graduation and the life beyond, stoked on their upcoming trail project.
A few months later, Jackson Zechnich suddenly and unexpectedly passed away, leaving the crew with the grief of a lost friend and a young life cut short. Drew and Andrew headed for the woods with an open wound that needed healing.
"He was a great guy," Drew remembers. "I met him in college, where we were roommates. His passion and career direction was design. He was a really good artist and a talented creative. We went to mountain bike races together and traveled for riding together. He was, and he IS, one of my best friends."
The decision to finish the trail was not a conscious one; the trail provided solace for Drew and his friends, and they accepted it knowing Jackson would have wanted them to.
"We started immediately, essentially; it was part of our grieving process and staying connected to him. We planned it all together, and it’s precisely his riding style exemplified in how the trail is built. I remember never feeling tired, and I’m still never bored building on that trail. I always have a lot of energy building on that trail, and I think a lot of that comes from him."
How JZ’s Became Bigger Than a Trail
JZ's now stands as a monument for Jackson, carrying his legacy both in the trail itself and in the space that lies between the riding and the actual trail. A space where that intangible something occurs that makes us belong to our culture and the people in it.
"I’m very thrilled to have so many people riding that trail. And so many people loving it as much as they do. It’s been a great platform for me to share his story with people that I meet."
You learn a lot when listening to Drew's thoughts. For example, the success of a project doesn’t always depend on experience or what resources you possess; it’s so much more about the mindset you bring to the hill.
When looking at trail building as a chore, you start with a deficit, making the process less enjoyable and the results more disappointing. It´s easy to adopt this frame of mind as a mountain biker, and when looking at Drew you might be inclined to view his work as the result of sheer grit. A fight against the elements, tools in hand to push and shove until the ground yields.
However, with Drew Steusse, it’s possible that his genuine love for the craft inspires more than the actual trails he builds, which is made evident from his own reason for why he’s out there in the first place.
"It’s not grit ... it’s joy."
End note. A big thanks to Hannah Bergemann for nominating Drew for this article and Colin Wiseman for providing the excellent photography used as reference for the art.
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This article originally appeared in Volume 2, Issue 2 of Trail Builder Magazine.
Anders Engberg
Illustrator and writer from northern Sweden. Spends most days working as a paramedic with the local ambulance/SAR unit, but happily indulges in freelance work in the world of bikes and boards.
