The complete story by Steffi Marth, enduro bike tests, trails you have to ride and much more can be found in the new FREERIDE 1/16 - on newsstands from 1 March. to the FREERIDE 1/16 magazine preview
The photographer has already set up his flash system. Two professional female bikers are waiting next to him in colourful bike outfits, because the fashion shoot is about to begin. The women are to spray around with the steam jet at the bike wash station for the photo and look good doing it. One biker is still missing - everyone is waiting for her: Steffi Marth. And then she finally arrives on her bike. Wide awake, sparkling blue eyes, petite nose, long dark hair, glittering stones on her upper row of teeth. She has just been guiding journalists along the angry trails on Lake Garda for her sponsor. Now she's here.
Steffi enters the set like a film star. The leading role belongs to her - that's clear to everyone. A big hello with photographers and professional colleagues. Bussi left, bussi right. Quick change of clothes. Light blue tape on her shoulder is reminiscent of the Downhill World Cup in Lourdes. Apparently the ligaments are torn, but the doctor in France couldn't say for sure. She is still annoyed about the fall shortly before the final. "I only had the two big jumps in my head - I completely forgot about the rest of the course," says Steffi. She chose the wrong line, a ledge, a front drop, a blow from behind - Steffi lands directly on her outstretched arm. Race over, emergency room. But now she's here on Lake Garda and has to swap roles. Instead of Steffi, the racer, now Steffi, the pretty brand ambassador. She slips into a new outfit and grabs the steam jet. The photographer presses the shutter release on his camera like a Morse code operator. Click, click - click!
Steffi Marth is Germany's fastest female racer in downhill and fourcross. But despite the flood of medals and winners' podiums, only one thing seems to count in the male-dominated mountain bike scene: that Steffi looks good and radiates an attitude to life that everyone longs for. The fact that she has been one of the few Germans to compete with the international racing elite for years is often forgotten.
The urge to compete caught Steffi early in life. Back then, the mayor of her home town of Plessa made an unusual decision that would change her life. At the time, Steffi was playing handball in a club, like most of her friends. This would have continued had the mayor of the village of 3,000 people not suddenly decided to build a BMX track. A big sensation in a small village. Steffi soon just wanted to surf the waves. She raced her little bike around the track from morning to night, often faster than the boys. BMX is not a girls' sport, so Steffi's parents were irritated by their daughter's enthusiasm. It was only when she won her first race that dad Marth took the hobby seriously and travelled to all the races with her from then on. The 12-year-old Steffi almost always climbed onto the winners' podium - usually right to the top.
When the performance centre in Cottbus was desperately looking for female track cyclists in 2003 with a view to the forthcoming Olympics, the officials kept coming across one name when scouring the results lists: Marth, Steffi (Plessa). "Suddenly I was considered an Olympic hopeful," Steffi remembers. She left the twelfth grade overnight and moved to Cottbus to attend a boarding school for sport. Steffi trained until her thighs could no longer fit into her jeans. She only went home once a month.
It was the summer of 2006 and Germany was dreaming of a black, red and gold summer fairytale. Steffi was standing in a stuffy gym. She took a deep breath, bent her knees and lifted 110 kilos with all her strength. The veins bulged out of her temples. It was the moment when Steffi realised that it wouldn't be enough. That the Olympic Games in Beijing and her great cycling career were not going to happen. "Six training days a week, three to five hours - all for nothing," Steffi remembers. The Olympics took place without her. Out of frustration, she entered a mountain bike race on her 24-inch BMX bike with a rigid fork. And won. The fourcross discipline immediately appealed to her, as it is similar to BMX racing: one track, several riders, sprints, elbow action. "It seemed so easy," grins Steffi.
Despite her massive racing success, it was a chance incident that finally helped her get a professional contract. A guy called Daniel Geiger called the Marths and wanted to speak to Steffi. Geiger, a scene photographer, was fascinated by Steffi's natural, cheerful charisma. "He wanted to photograph me for the Cyclepassion calendar. I had to google the term first," says Steffi. What she found on the internet left her speechless at first. The Cyclepassion calendar was a compilation of softer erotic sports portraits.
After some hesitation, she agreed. Steffi posed in front of the camera with a pout and bedroom eyes - covering her naked breasts with two bicycle helmets. After the shoot, the photographer advised her to introduce herself to the bike manufacturer Trek. They were currently looking for pretty female bikers for a new team called "Gravity Girls".
With the Cyclepassion calendar under her arm, Steffi travelled to Eurobike and introduced herself. The PR man was delighted. Not without reason, because Steffi conquers hearts even without best times. Where others have to argue, Steffi only has to bat her eyelashes and smile and everyone melts away.
A calendar shoot as a door opener for a career as a professional biker? "Yes, unfortunately," says Steffi today. She would much rather have conquered the mountain bike world as a successful racer. But she became the pretty face of biking, Miss Gravity, "sexy Steffi". Her performance as a biker seemed secondary.
The freeride scene gratefully accepted Steffi. Sex sells. Companies crave beautiful women who can convey the freeriding lifestyle. Their sponsor sends them to the most beautiful places in the world. Steffi on the Great Wall of China. Steffi beaming on the berm in Hawaii. Steffi in an off-the-shoulder tank top performing a balancing act on Canada's Northshore ladders. With pictures like these, she has landed on front pages and calendars for years. Even photos are printed that photo editors would have rigorously discarded if it were a male colleague and not her, who is rounding the bend with a smile. Photographers know this too: "You rarely sit on pictures of Steffi," says photographer Wolfgang Watzke.
Steffi soon realised that she doesn't have to win races to be successful and willingly plays the role of Miss Gravity. She is also smart and uses her acumen to good effect. She is the unofficial boss of the Trek Gravity team and calls the shots. She writes columns for magazines. She develops promotional concepts. She hatches ideas for travel reports. Some moan that she is over-present. Others even accuse her of being quite calculating and see her relationship with photographer Nathan Hughes as a strategic calculation. After all, every professional is dependent on up-to-date image material, which in practice involves a lot of effort.
"It couldn't be more convenient: she, the bike starlet, he, the photographer - it's a win-win situation for both of them," a scene connoisseur blasphemes behind closed doors.
There are even those who accuse Steffi of forcing herself to be a professional and sometimes seeming as hard-hearted as Heidi Klum on the TV show Germany's Next Top Model. She allegedly shows little understanding for people who don't go along with her. There are many comments like this on the internet. But Steffi doesn't let this upset her. "Of course it annoys me," she says and presents herself professionally: " ... but you can't let that get to you."
"I don't understand the excitement. Steffi is pretty, sits well on the bike and exudes the vital attitude to life that goes with freeriding. In short, she is the ideal ambassador for the sport," says Dimitri Lehner, editor-in-chief of FREERIDE, "Nobody expects Holger Meyer, Rob J or Tibor Simai to win the Red Bull Rampage either," says Lehner.
In reality, however, Steffi is bothered by her pretty face image. She would rather perform and be recognised for her racing success. Just like downhill world champion Rachel Atherton.
She competes in the Fourcross World Cup and even finishes in the top five from time to time. "Nobody crows about that, at least not among the women," says seven-time German downhill champion Antje Kramer: "If you want to be recognised as a racer, you have to be at the top internationally, as consistently as possible." Steffi has already celebrated small successes. But the big ones have yet to materialise. Nevertheless, she continues to dream of her international breakthrough as a racer. When the UCI withdrew fourcross from the programme at the end of 2011, many racers were left in bewilderment. But not Steffi. She knows that she is much more valuable to her employer as a photo rider anyway.
In 2014, she competed in the Downhill World Cup for the first time and did remarkably well. In one of the next races, she even made it to 14th place in the final.
"I knew then that I wanted to race the entire World Cup next year," says Steffi. She is considered ambitious and strong in training. However, hardly anyone believes she can make an international race breakthrough. "If you want to finish on the podium in the Downhill World Cup, you just have to concentrate on that and not dance at several different heights," says Germany's most successful downhiller Marcus Klausmann.
But Steffi doesn't care what others think. She wants to keep training hard and compete in the World Cup. But Steffi wouldn't be Steffi if she put all her eggs in one basket. She can't afford to leave other professional athletes empty-handed after the end of their careers. She has had her Master's degree in architecture in her pocket for a long time. Her degree in PR and marketing is as good as finished, and another degree programme is planned. "I'm interested in journalism. Maybe I'll do that," Steffi ponders.
Next year, she will be 30 years old. Her contracts run for another three years, but she wants to carry on for quite a while. She likes life as Miss Gravity. Life in the limelight. Biking in the most beautiful places in the world. Fun on the trails instead of the daily routine of an office job.
It's early afternoon and the fashion shoot is over. The steam jet is also slowly running out of steam. Steffi laughs. The photographer gets the camera out again and continues to take pictures on the off-chance that the megabits are just pouring onto the memory chip.
"Ready?" asks Steffi. She has to get going. Signing autographs and discussing projects with sponsors. Next week she's off to Japan with her boyfriend Nathan - to go biking, of course. And of course: a nice photo story is sure to come out of it.
INFO STEFFI MARTH
Vita Born 19 August 1985 in Plessa (Brandenburg).
Career 1997-2007 BMX (European Championship and World Championship races), 2007-2013/14 Fourcross (World Cup and Protour, World Championship), 2014, 2015 Downhill World Cup
Successes Bronze Fourcross World Championship 2014, 5-time German Champion (BMX, Fourcross), 5th place Fourcross World Cup Val di Sole 2010, 2011, Bronze Downhill DM 2014
Hobbies Puzzles (don't laugh!), studying, moto-crossing, skiing, being at home in Plessa
Contact us www.steffimarth.com
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Laurin Lehner
Editor
