Until recently, it would have been almost unthinkable to see Kate Courtney eschewing the run of World Cups but the current marathon mountain bike World Champion has been showing up on plenty of new start lines of late, from the more mountain-bike adjacent gravel races to, most recently, a debut at the USA Cycling Pro Road Championships.
And what a debut it was.
The She Sends Racing competitor walked away with the jersey of a national road race champion, after having taken on her first road race since she was 16 just last month, competing in and winning stage 4 of the 2.2 ranked Tour de Feminin.
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"I think for me I really needed to give myself the chance to experiment and put myself in new, uncertain situations where I didn't have expectations and I could really go for it. I did that today, and it worked out," Courtney told broadcaster FloBikes in a post-race interview.
The road newcomer, Courtney, had charged toward the line with the most experienced of players in Lauren Stephens (Aegis x Leaders of Enchantment). The latter racer was lining up for her eleventh tilt at the elite women's national road race title, which she snared in 2021 and was also runner-up last year. Courtney, however, was leaning on the wisdom of her team support to help put herself in a position where victory was a possibility,
"I knew, ok, it's probably going to be a war of attrition and come down to that last lap. I was just trying to save enough and be smart but also keep the pace on, so that we actually had a chance at it," said Courtney.
"And then, of course, trying to figure out how to play that final. I haven't been in that many situations like that, so I'm really proud that I was able to stick the landing."
It was a considerably different scenario than Courtney has been used to facing in more ways than just the tactics. For the 2018 XCO world champion and 2019 World Cup series winner who started her mountain bike national title collection as a junior in 2010, lining up on the mountain bike had come to mean always heading into a race with expectation.
"My little mantra today was everything to gain," said Courtney. "I think I've come into a lot of Nationals where it felt like I had everything to lose. Either you had the jersey, or you were the top-performing World Cup athlete, and so you really felt like anything less than a win was a disappointment.
"It felt really freeing to be in this race and know that as long as I gave everything, I was going to be really proud, and I was going to learn a lot. So, if I played the tactics wrong and that hadn't worked out in my favour, I would have learned a big lesson, played my cards a little differently next time.
"But I think today I learned to never give up and to keep fighting to the line."
So what does this now mean for the racer who at one time had a regular pattern of mountain bike events mapped out each season? Is her road bike and new national championship jersey likely to get some more outings?
"I mean, I love to represent the jersey, so yeah, I gotta wear it and we'll see," was what Courtney said when asked in the FloBikes interview if she would be on the road more.
"We'll savour this one for a bit, and then try to show up in that jersey, ready to fight."
After all, with the schedule opened up and the disciplines wide open, it seems anything is possible for Courtney in 2026.
"It's my year of radical experimentation," concluded the 30-year-old.
