After a year spent juggling road racing, World Cups, crashes, and recovery, the up-and-coming Austrian has a clearer sense of where she wants to take her career.
Piper Albrecht, Whoop UCI Mountain Bike World Series, Kristof Ramon
If there’s a rider who embodied the word busy in 2025, it was Mona Mitterwallner. Between a near-full XC World Cup calendar and road appearances for Human Powered Health at the Vuelta España Femenina, Tour de France Femmes, and Milan-San Remo Donne, she barely stopped – more than doubling her race days from 2024.
The monster season taught her a lot about balance, energy investment, and prioritisation. “When you’re young, you believe you can handle it all,” she told Escape Collective in a recent interview. “But I learned that it doesn’t always work like that.” However, in the depths of a European autumn, Mitterwallner still can’t resist the bike. Instead of embracing a well-earned rest, she’s riding through Austria’s ‘golden autumn,’ chasing colour before the cold. It was a rare moment to enjoy the calm in a season marked by ankle surgery, crashes, illness, and the physical and mental challenges of balancing a World Cup season with her debut on the road, as well as a well-deserved World Cup XCO win at Nové Město, Czechia, her first since 2023.
Mitterwallner occupies a rare paradox of youth and experience. At 23 years old, she is still a developing athlete, navigating the upper echelons of her sport whilst also pulling on a wealth of experience from four years racing in the elite field. Her early rise from U23 at the age of 20 came after she won all of the races in the World Cup season in 2021.
UCI XC World Cup 2025 season review: A change of the guard?
From Nino Schurter’s farewell to Samara Maxwell’s rise, 2025 was the year mountain bike racing’s power centers changed hands.
Mitterwallner may be wiser and more considered in her approach to racing after this season, but the young rider’s hunger on the bike burns with a ferocity belied by her calm persona. In our conversation, we discussed her move to Mondraker, what brought about the dual-discipline programme that added a busy road schedule to an already-full XC season, as well as her honest thoughts on where XC is heading under Warner Bros Discovery’s ownership.
A new start: Joining Mondraker
For Mitterwallner, 2025 was always going to be a year of change. After several seasons with Cannondale Factory Racing, she made the leap to Mondraker Factory Racing – a move that, on paper, came with all the usual challenges of new equipment, teammates, and routines. Yet for Mitterwallner, the transition felt surprisingly natural.
“It was a really easy change,” she said. “The team structure is super open.” The move didn’t just mean a new jersey; it meant adapting to a different bike design philosophy. Mondraker’s suspension layout and subtle changes in fit gave her a fresh platform to explore her riding style, with the bike sporting the brand’s Forward Geometry that lengthens the top tube of the bike and compensates with a shorter stem, something that aligned with Mitterwallner’s riding style.
Mitterwallner was initially cautious about adapting to the new Mondraker bike, but a win at May’s Nové Město World Cup round showed it was ideally suited for her riding style.
“The suspension and set-up are really good for me,” she explained. “It climbs well, which has always been my strength.” For a rider confident on descents but strongest on climbs, Mondraker’s F-Podium offered a change. “I can sit a bit more on the front,” she said – her preferred position on steep, technical climbs that define World Cup XC racing. That shift helped pay off with success at the highest level at the Nové Město World Cup round in May.
The move to Mondraker also brought a sense of adventure; its bold, progressive identity matched the energy of a rider stepping into the next phase of her career.
“There’s a real Spanish spirit in the team,” Mitterwallner said with a laugh. “They’re passionate, everyone is excited about what we can build together. It’s a new project, and you feel that.”
Beyond technical performance, Mondraker offered her a new kind of freedom, a welcome openness after a difficult off-season recovering from ankle surgery. The change hasn’t dulled her trademark intensity; it has simply channelled it more constructively. Where once minor issues might have felt like a setback, she now approaches the process with curiosity.
World Champion Jenny Rissveds knows how to win without losing yourself
The Swedish mountain biker tells us about how perspective on what really matters helped her climb back to the top of the sport.
In a sport where marginal gains often come at the cost of individuality, Mitterwallner has found something more valuable: the space to grow, both as a rider and as a person.
This post is for paying subscribers only
Subscribe now
Already have an account? Sign in
Did we do a good job with this story?
👍Yep
👎Nope