cover of Outside magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n![\"Kate](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Kate4.jpg\")
Kate Courtney racing the 2019 world championships (Photo: Dustin Satloff\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Courtney followed the big win up with another accolade\u2014in 2019 she won mountain biking\u2019s World Cup series.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo the the outside world those results probably seem like they came out of nowhere, and those big media moments are like the only thing you remember, but I had raced pretty much at that level for a few years beforehand,\u201d Courtney said. \u201cFrom then until the 2020 season I was consistently at the front of international races.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then? Injuries and setbacks, success and failure. Courtney qualified for the 2020 Olympics, but finished a distant 15th. In 2020 she suffered a concussion; a year later she broke her arm. The next generation of American mountain bikers surpassed her. Haley Batten, the youngster Courtney once mentored, topped her on the World Cup, eventually winning Olympic silver in 2024. Courtney, meanwhile, didn\u2019t quality for Team USA for the 2024 Games.<\/p>\n
![\"Kate](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/kate-courtney-mtb_s.jpg\")
Kate Courtney, the first American to win an overall UCI Mountain Bike World Cup cross-country series title in 17 years (Bartosz Wolinski\/Red Bull Content Pool)<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were a combination of factors that have prevented me from accessing my highest level of performance,\u201d Courtney said. \u201cIt\u2019s not so unique to me; a lot of athletes have ups and downs, especially when you reach that peak early in your career. It\u2019s a different challenge to try to stay at that level or to replicate that for multiple seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n
Courtney spent years trying to recapture her mojo. She changed coaches and switched bike sponsors. She left her European team in 2024, and in 2025 launched her own team with her own sponsors, called She Sends Racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou try things until they work, and I\u2019ve been on a bit of a journey to recapture that at the World Cup level again,\u201d she said. \u201cAll of the changes have been about me trying to unlock that performance level that I know I\u2019m capable of.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then in 2025, another crash, another broken bone, and a disrupted World Cup campaign. In the spring she returned to California to rest and recover. For her first race back, Courtney chose a new race to begin her comeback: the Leadville Trail 100.<\/p>\n
A Race that Unlocked Her Ability<\/p>\n
A World Cup cross-country race and the Leadville Trail 100 are akin to comparing the 10,000 meters to an ultramarathon.<\/p>\n
World Cup mountain bike races last just over an hour, and are incredible tests of all-out effort and fight. Most are held in Europe. Seventy of the world\u2019s fastest racers elbow each other as they battle for every inch of trail around a short course with steep climbs, punishing descents, and the occasional sheer drop-off. One bobble, one slip, and a cyclist may be passed by a dozen others.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is something in me that has the deep love of these races and the deep intensity around it and what it demands. Ninety nine percent isn\u2019t enough, you have to give 100,\u201d Courtney said. \u201cThose are some of the most rewarding days I\u2019ve had in the sport\u2014and also my most frustrating because it\u2019s so hard to stay on that edge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leadville, meanwhile, takes all day to unfold. The professionals share the 100-mile course with weekend warriors. The course isn\u2019t very technical\u2014some athletes compete on gravel bicycles. Oftentimes, the fastest pros spend much of the day racing by themselves, squeezing every ounce of endurance from their bodies over the course of hours.<\/p>\n
That was the case for Courtney. After dropping the defending champion, Melissa Rollins, on the course\u2019s signature Columbine climb, she rode by herself at top speed for 55 miles.<\/p>\n
But at Leadville, Courtney raced in front of screaming fans, TV cameras showing the race live, and\u2014perhaps most importantly\u2014her family.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Kate4f.jpg\")
Courtney spent much of the Leadville race riding by herself (Photo: Dan Hughes\/Life Time)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt had these elements that make me want to perform in a race\u2014challenging terrain, high level of competition, my family was there,\u201d Courtney said. \u201cIt was in an environment that was so different from what I\u2019m used to that it unlocked the mental side of competition.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s another big difference between the two formats. World Cups and the world championships are qualifying events for the Olympics. The Leadville Trail 100 is not. Instead, it is part of a series of ultra-endurance gravel cycling events called the Life Time Grand Prix, which offers $380,000 in prize cash and live broadcasts of races. In recent years, these mass-participant events, such as Kansas\u2019s Unbound Gravel, have gained global attention and even attracted top professionals from the Tour de France and mountain biking World Cup.<\/p>\n
Racers like Courtney can now earn a decent living on the series\u2014and they don\u2019t have to spend half the year racing abroad. Former World Cup mountain bikers Keegan Swenson and Sofia Gomez-Villafa\u00f1e have extended their careers in cycling on the Life Time circuit, as have a handful of others.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a huge media opportunity to race in the U.S., and Life Time has done a great job with the series,\u2019 she added. \u201cWhat I think is cool is there\u2019s now the option to race these events.\u201d<\/p>\n
But having the option and taking it are two completely different things. When I asked Courtney if the Leadville victory convinced her to trade the World Cup for the Life Time series, or to target big gravel events like Unbound Gravel, she pushed back.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnbound is a flat gravel race over 200 miles. I\u2019m a racer who excels at anaerobic climbs,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s not my current plan or desire. It\u2019s been fun to watch the level rise, but they\u2019re not races I\u2019d put as super goals for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Crossroads<\/p>\n
Courtney will turn 30 in October\u2014hardly old for a World Cup racer, but one step closer to the finish of her career than the start. As our conversation unfolded, she admitted that she has felt fatigued by the World Cup circuit, and the year-in, year-out chase of victories and podium finishes.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince I was 16 years old I\u2019ve lived and died by UCI points on the World Cup,\u201d she said. \u201cThat requires this dedication to certain events and certain performances. It is this structure that becomes a big organizing principal of your life. Having this injury in 2025 forced me to think about what I want out of racing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The wrist injury, recovery, and decision to race Leadville showed her that there are events outside of the European racing circuit that can motivate her to reach her best. She told me that the entire ordeal has convinced her to branch out from the World Cup chase in 2026 and beyond.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m curious about having more freedom to pick and choose other races,\u201d she said. \u201cAs the World Cup season expands\u2014we now have ten races and they want to add more in the future\u2014it\u2019s a long time to be away. That\u2019s never brought the best out of me, being gone for that much of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n
What, exactly, her racing schedule looks like next year is still up in the air. Courtney will still race World Cups, but she will also target an ultra endurance race or two as well. And yeah, Courtney may dabble in a gravel race as well. Now that she controls her own destiny as manager of her own team, she has the power to choose.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe goal is to be able to race in the way I know I\u2019m capable of racing at any race\u2014at a World Cup, gravel race, endurance mountain bike race\u2014and that is what I\u2019m working towards,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But trading the World Cup series for the North American gravel scene isn\u2019t the Shangri-La that Courtney is after\u2014not yet, anyway. She wants to seek out races that create, as she called it, a \u201cLeadville moment,\u201d but not commit herself to a different points chase on a different series.<\/p>\n
Hence the sensitivity to questions over the potential pivot to gravel racing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the same way that I don\u2019t want to be just a World Cup racer who can\u2019t do anything else and has to maintain my ranking, I\u2019m also not planning to just race gravel in the U.S.,\u201d Courtney said. \u201cTrying to put a box around your racing limits athletes.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, while Kate Courtney hasn\u2019t completely chosen which crossroad to take, there\u2019s good chance that, in 2026, she will pedal in a different direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Outside talks to mountain biker Kate Courtney about Leadville, the World Cup, and whether or not she\u2019s interested…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85527,75625,85,85524,85525,85526,67883],"class_list":["post-121123","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-editor-fred-dreier","tag-parent_category-adventure","tag-sports","tag-tag-colorado","tag-tag-mountain-biking","tag-tag-olympics","tag-type-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Kate](\"https:\/\/www.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Courtney3.jpg\")
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