Looking for a single word that describes who Sam Soriano is? “Prodigy” is a good fit.

In her early teens Sam transitioned to competitive mountain biking—first there was cross-country racing, then enduro, then downhill. And by the time she was 17? By then Sam was already the United States’ Downhill National Champion—the youngest woman in history to achieve that loftiest of heights.

But being a prodigy isn’t always everything it’s cracked up to be.

Sam was officially burnt out before she’d even turned 20. “I’d raced World Cups, Nationals, everything under the sun,” she said in one interview. The stress of competing at the highest levels can quickly take its toll on riders—and racing was what Soriano had done her whole life. The thrill of racing had worn thin.

Then COVID rolled around and like a lot of people, Sam rediscovered the joy of simply riding. No trophies, finish lines, or starting gates required. With competitions cancelled around the world, Sam, like the rest of us, was stuck at home with time on her hands. She’s since called that period of time a blessing in disguise. Spending every day riding her local bike park reignited her love for riding for its own sake. She eventually moved out to Utah and began hitting the big and unforgiving slopes that have been the background of every freeride movie worth its salt.

Today, Sam is one of the brightest stars in freeride mountain biking—one of just a few dozen women in the world to compete at freeriding’s elite level. Women’s freeriding, however, is beginning to experience a boom of its own. “Freeride has been primarily male dominated since its beginning,” Soriano explained in a video for another one of her sponsors, Can-Am. “This is such a new thing for women and we’re all pioneering it. To have all these amazing females break into that space? Everyone’s so excited about it.”

These days, what inspires Sam most is the thrill of tackling some of sketchiest and most daring terrain in the world and the creative expression that takes the form of digging, building and crafting fierce lines of her own. “I like to push myself and progress,” she says, “but I’m doing it on my own terms now.”

“I feel like it’s really cliché,” Sam told Bike Magazine’s Ariel Kazunas in a recent interview, “but my ‘why’ as a rider is that I want to inspire people and serve others.”

“At the end of the day, if I can inspire other women to get out there and get outside their comfort zone. You know, do something that really inspires them, then my work here is complete.”