PHOTOGRAPHS SUSAN THEIS, EWALD SADIE / CAPE EPIC / SPORTZPICS |
he current UCI MTB Marathon World Champion grew up riding with her father in Marin County, in the gorgeous wooded mountains just north of San Francisco that are regarded as the birthplace of our sport. The girl from Palo Alto took to racing bikes in her teens, and soon topped the podium at the American XC Junior National Championships. By the time she’ d graduated high school, she’ d become the first American woman to win a UCI MTB World Cup in the Junior category, and she signed her first pro contract with Specialized in the same year she started at Stanford University.
Her talent and work ethic saw her make a steady rise through the ranks in the next few years, as she took U23 victories both in the States and on the World Cup circuit. She stepped up to racing at the elite level in 2018, and opened her season by teaming up with Annika Langvad as Team Investec-Songo-Specialized at the Absa Cape Epic. The powerhouse pair dominated the race, winning the Prologue and maintaining a commanding lead to win the overall GC by a substantial margin of over 46 minutes.
It was to be a breakout year for the American star, who went on to win the American XC National Champs, and then the XC World Championships in Switzerland, where she rode away from a stacked field to claim gold at her first attempt( delivering the United States its first mountain bike world champion in 17 years in the process). More accolades followed in 2019, when she won three World Cup fixtures to take the overall title.
However, a career in pro racing is rarely champagne and podiums at every step, and the next few seasons saw her dogged by injuries and setbacks. She started working with Barry Austin, the South African coach who’ s masterminded a resurgence among many of the world’ s elite bike racers, and last year started broadening her focus to take on more endurance-distance events after a wrist injury took her out of the World Cup Series. It brought her some big wins – at the Leadville Trail 100 MTB, where she smashed the event record by over 10 minutes, and at the 2025 UCI World Championships in Valais, Switzerland,
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Kate rode her first Absa Cape Epic in 2018 with Annika Langvad – and the pair dominated the Elite Women’ s race.
“ KATE IS EAGER TO RETURN TO THE EVENT WITH, IN HER WORDS,‘ A LITTLE MORE EXPERIENCE’ UNDER HER BELT”
where she clinched her second World Champion title, this time in XCM.
The 30-year-old star is still driven to attain the best performance from herself. Touching base with her in the lead up to this year’ s Absa Cape Epic, she’ s the embodiment of professionalism. She’ s confident in what she is capable of, and humble about what she has achieved. Her racing story is very much still being written, and there’ s a good chance that the best chapters are yet to be told.
SENDING IT FORWARD Eight years on from her first Cape Epic, Kate is eager to return to the event with, in her words,“ a little more experience” under her belt. Rather a typical understatement from the two-time World Champ.
She recalls her race with Annika Langvad in 2018 as being a significantly formative experience in her career.“ I was a first year elite, and it was my first time racing an event this long and a stage race of any kind, so there were a lot of unknowns, and I knew I would have to step up both mentally and physically to meet the demands of such an insane race, and with one of the greatest marathon racers of all time as my partner.
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“ When I look back at it, I really think that this event was formative in my ability to take on really big challenges and trust that with the right preparation, I would be able to succeed. I think there were a lot of people that doubted I would be able to finish the Epic or to compete at a high level in it, and to be able to believe in myself, do the necessary preparation, and then just be really, really gritty and strong on race day, it gave me a lot of confidence that I could level up as well in the World Cups and in the World Championships, which I won later that year.”
In the intervening years, she’ s racked up many successes, but she’ s also learned what it is to deal with failures, injuries, and performances that didn’ t measure up to her expectations. Now she is at a point where she has the confidence and the toolset to launch her own racing programme and a foundation that embodies her own story as well as her vision, namely the She Sends Foundation.
“ I think for me, it has been one of the hardest and most rewarding journeys of my career,” shares Kate about establishing She Sends.“ It has challenged me to really own every element of the process and to double down on the things that I really care about, and that mattered to me, in my own performance and in pursuing my big dreams on the bike. And then it’ s also stretched me to find more ways to use that for good and to inspire and empower the next generation of female cyclists.”
The goal of the She Sends Foundation is to empower more young women to
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the untamed african mtb race | MTB | 27 |