BENTONVILLE, Arkansas (Velo) – On Saturday, Alexis Skarda will do something that she has done hundreds of times over the past decade — she’ll line up for a bike race, ride as hard and smart as she can, and she will cross a finish line.

Later that day, however, she’ll do something she has never done before: she’ll perform live music in front of a crowd.

Read also: Big Sugar Gravel preview

Skarda is making her musical debut at the Gravel Rave, Big Sugar Gravel’s post-race party in Bentonville, Arkansas. She’ll perform a 30-minute set of electronic music just after the awards ceremony for the Life Time Grand Prix series.

But Skarda isn’t just a musical act at the party — she’ll also likely be on the Grand Prix podium (she’s currently in second place in the series).

While the thought of jumping from ‘bike racer on the podium’ to ‘music maker on the stage’ might sound terrifying for some, Skarda says the two actually aren’t that different.

“You can prepare the music ahead of time, but you still have to perform it,” she says. “It’s pretty parallel with bike racing, actually. And even though I have no idea how it’s gonna go, it will be a learning experience.”

Music maker –> bike racer

Skarda has been making electronic music for longer than she’s been a bike racer. Her musical background really begins with her dad, she says.

As a kid, she’d sing harmony with him while he played the guitar. She played violin in the school orchestra and dabbled on the piano, but it was at her dad’s digital audio workstation that Skarda really discovered her true musical interest. She started to mix and record tracks, using a small electronic piano as accompaniment.

Skarda says that after playing around with making music in high school, she put the hobby on hold for five years — during which time she started racing mountain bikes in college. After graduating, she rediscovered the hobby.

Her interest in making music “goes in phases,” she says.

“I definitely obsess over this. There are times when I’m just buried in it, like all night and all day. Then there will be times when I’m not in the mindset for it, so I go in and out.” 

This past week, between racing the Little Sugar MTB race and preparing for Big Sugar Gravel, has been an obsessive phase as Skarda prepares for her set on Saturday evening.

While some have mistakenly assumed that Skarda will be DJ’ing the party, it’s important to note that she is actually performing music that she has created, rather than mixing already-recorded music.

“I use MIDI, which is basically digital sounds, and write chord progressions, and will use samples too. It’s a combo of writing music, samples, and getting sounds and putting them together and making songs,” she says.

That’s what Skarda has been working on all week back at her AirBnB in Bentonville — writing something original for Saturday night.

If all goes well, she might be able to riff on her own music and play the DJ role a bit. But again, she says, it’s a little bit like preparing for a bike race — first, she has to control the controllables.

“It does feel a little bit like a race, like ‘I don’t want my computer to crash or the system to fail, which would be like getting a flat tire,’” she says. “I’m just trying to make it so that everything works properly before I can really get into the riskier stuff when it comes to performing. The closest I’ve ever gotten is recording myself on a phone doing something, which you can do as many times as you need to if something goes wrong.”

While Skarda has never put herself on stage to make music in front of people, in a way being a professional bike racer has prepared her for it. This season and last, Skarda has raced prolifically, both in the Grand Prix and beyond, and has landed on the podium more often than now.

Skarda’s 2023 season began early with wins at the Cactus Cup and Moab Rocks mountain bike races in March. Then, she was second at Sea Otter and third at Leadville. She won the national marathon MTB title after placing second at the gravel national championships.

She treats each race is both an opportunity to showcase the skills she has refined and to learn something new. Skarda says that she’s not naturally detail-oriented or wired for perfectionism, and she’s had to learn how to put stock in things like “eating well and getting enough sleep.” She’s learned a lot about managing her equipment from her teammates Keegan Swenson and Tobin Ortenblad.

It’s been similar with music. Two years ago, Skarda started working with a mentor, who’s been helping her with “mixing and mastering,” details that were not her strong suit. She knows that whatever happens on Saturday night, she’ll learn something from it, hopefully for the next time she performs live — just like racing bikes.

“It’s actually really similar to how I started racing bikes,” she says. “I just kinda went with the attitude of, ‘if you don’t give up on it, you’ll get better at it.’”