She may be only a few weeks into her contract with FDJ United-SUEZ, but Kate Courtney wants to learn and experience as much as she can, as soon as she can, including getting a feel for the biggest race in the world.
The American was a special addition to the team entourage on stage 1 of the Tour de France Femmes, making an appearance to celebrate the arrival of Red Bull as a new sponsor, but also getting embedded in the team bubble.
A top-level athlete for over a decade, Courtney is far from a stranger to these big events, but she knows how much she has to learn when it comes to road racing and the WorldTour, and is keen to soak up as much as possible in her 2026 half-season that she describes as "a head start" before 2027.
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"We obviously had some big news to share today, so that was my primary motivation to give these girls some wings as they take on the hardest race in the world," she told Cyclingnews on Saturday.
"But also, I think for me, being here for a couple days – I'll just be here for stage 1 and 2 – is a huge learning opportunity. I can see not only what's happening in the race, but also everything behind the scenes, and learn a bit about what it would take to make a team someday."
To say Courtney has got stuck in straight away since signing for FDJ United-Suez would be something of an understatement. She made her debut just a matter of days after her arrival was announced, taking 15th and 13th at a pair of one-day races in France, and then headed to Belgium to tackle some kermesses, of which she won two.
"It's been quite a whirlwind," she said. "I have a lot of room for growth, a lot of opportunity to learn from the best in the world, and I think I'm just really excited we were able to get started. I'm also really grateful that the team is investing in such long-term progression and really helping make sure that when I'm put in at the highest level, I have the skills to compete. That's obviously a long-term project, but something that's really exciting, and I feel really well supported in."
Whilst the goals are long term, with Courtney's contract running through 2027 and 2028 with the LA Olympics likely a big ambition, she and the team were keen to squeeze some high-level racing into the remainder of 2026.
After a few weeks of racing and training in Europe, Courtney is heading home to the US to train – she won't be racing Leadville – before the Tour of Britain Women. Her win at the National Championships should have earned her a spot on the USA team for the World Championships in Montréal, and the current plan is to return home after the Tour of Britain to prepare for that.
Whilst her ambitions for this year are certainly high, there is also a bit of a sense that 2026 is something of a bonus year, and a few months to get prepared before hitting the ground running in 2027.
"The season schedule is still kind of coming together, but after Tour of Britain, I'll have a good break to train for the second half of my season, and then obviously we'll be starting to work on next year," she said. "So really, this half-year contract was about getting a head start and starting to identify what we need to do in the off-season to really make a difference in my performance for next year."
Adjusting to the road
At the Tour de France Femmes, Courtney is obviously seeing the very extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to road races and performance, but racing regularly on the road at all is still new to the American.
Whilst she's not coming at this from nowhere, and her road ability is undoubted – even this year, before joining FDJ, she won a race in Europe and the US national title – there are still small details she wants to work on to feel truly at home in the peloton.
"It's the small things, right? I've been a professional athlete for 10 years on the mountain bike side, so I know how to train. I'm sure we can always make adjustments and improvements. But it's really less about finding a few more watts and more about understanding the strategy, the tactics, how to ride in a team, how to listen on the radio, how to take a feed, all these things that you know come as second nature if you've come up through the road peloton, but for me, are new and different.
"It will just take a little bit of getting used to and understanding, so that I can make good decisions and hopefully get myself into some big races."
Where does she look to for advice and lesions in doing all of these things? Well, everyone, really.
"That's why you come to FDJ, right? It's to ride amongst the best riders in the world, but also to work with the best people. From our CEO to our media team to our staff support to our mechanics to our coaches to our DSs, there's really an insane team behind the team, and I have something to learn from all of them."
The way Courtney has been welcomed into the team, be it in her races so far or in the team car at the Tour de France Femmes, is also something new, and a new dynamic for her to get used to.
"It's interesting. I mean, mountain biking is not a team sport. I think we organise in teams, and support can be arranged through teams. But at the end of the day, it's an individual sport," she said. "So it's really special for me at this stage of my career to be part of a real team, where on any given day, all of the riders are part of the finishing result. That's a really unique thing and something I'm looking forward to being a part of in races coming up."
Long term, Courtney is definitely dreaming of returning to the Tour de France Femmes as a rider, not just an onlooker, but at this stage, practically every new experience is a bucket list item for the 30-year-old.
"I think one of the exciting things is that I haven't raced in any of these big races, so whether it's one of the spring classics, whether it's one of the Grand Tours, all of these events are new to me and huge goals on the horizon," she said.
"But obviously, the Tour de France Femmes is top of the list there, and something completely different when it comes to media, reach and impact, and obviously the level of the racing. This is where people are the best. This is where the teams show up ready to compete all-out, and of course, my goal is to compete at the pinnacle of the sport, and that would be a big long term goal.
"But I've come to the team that is the hardest to make, so I've got some work to do. We love a challenge!"
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