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Red Bull Foxhunt 2017: Katy Winton interview
Katy Winton talks about MTB havens, her life-changing switch to enduro racing and why she's proud to take part in the EWS.
Scottish MTB enduro racer Katy Winton has just come off the best biking season of her career so far. As part of the Trek Factory Racing team, Katy has travelled all over the world to take part in the Enduro World Series (EWS), and finished the season in an impressive third overall in 2017.
Katy is also playing the role of the 'fox' at Red Bull Foxhunt 2017, in place of an injured Rachel Atherton, and will hunt down over 200 female mountain bikers on a downhill course in Machynlleth, north Wales as she tries to overtake them.
Learn more about Katy in the interview below and find out about her favourite places to ride and what she thinks about female coverage in the EWS.
Katy talks to the ladies at Foxhunt
© Olaf Pignataro
Katy is playing the role of the fox
© Olaf Pignataro
Coaching the women on which line to take
© Leo Francis
When did you start racing?
I started racing around 11 or 12 years old once my parents deemed me old enough to be able to handle losing [laughs] – I was very very competitive! I did my first race and I did well, I just loved it because I liked trying to go as fast as I could up and down the hills, it was a lot of cross country (XC) racing. There was a nice crew there and it was in the Peebles area so I had friends there. I just loved racing so I wanted more of that.
When did you realise you could go professional?
When I was 13 or 14 I got on the Scottish talent team for cross country and they told me, "if you wanted you could go to the Commonwealth Games or the Olympics" and that’s when I decided "oh my gosh yes that’s totally what I want to do!" Like this is a possibility if I put the work in, so then I just drifted towards that. I wanted to be the best in the world really, and I was just doing whatever it took. Being professional is kind of like, okay that’s what you need to do to get the support, so you can actually be the best in the world. I didn’t really figure that out until later and then the results just came.
Why did you switch from XC to MTB Enduro?
So at the end of 2012 and the start of 2013, that winter, I over-trained badly, to the point of nearly giving up riding my bike altogether. We were trying to qualify for the Commonwealth Games, which was in Glasgow, so it was quite a big deal. But we just messed it up. In 2013 that’s when the EWS started, and I had already planned to do a couple of them but because XC screwed me over so badly I just needed to stop. I was not who I was before and it was just horrendous, so I needed to take a step back because being happy is more important than anything else.
Was it the right move?
Enduro came around at the right time, and I just loved it! It was a crew of my friends that went to each of the events in Europe, so I was travelling to new places, I was riding a bike that was way more fun than anything I’d ridden before and getting on chairlifts and going to the top of the mountains and racing down as fast as I could. So it was definitely the fun element that was the biggest part for me as well.
I got to the first stage of the first EWS event and I wasn’t even really that nervous, I was just like, "man I never wanted to be good at anything more than this". This is exactly what I want to be doing. It was such a terrible time before that, but when it leads to something like this [moving to EWS] it’s totally worth it. So it was the best thing that could have happened.
How did the 2017 season go for you?
It’s been a dream come true. This year I just wanted to get on the podium. So to get on the podium three times and hold third all year, that consistency like… I wanted to have a few good results, plus the consistency part is usually something that comes after that once you get settled at the top. So to do both of those things and have that consistency was just better than I could ever have imagined. I've always wanted to be fighting at the top of the sport, on that knife edge, with everybody else, so to now be doing that is really really satisfying.
What is your goal for next season?
I want to win one now! Getting on the podium a couple for times has showed me that I’m good enough, so now it’s just putting in the extra work so I can actually win it.
What is your focus for off-season training?
My bike riding is where I need to improve. From XC I know how to get fit, I know how to train, I know how to do all that. But actually, getting the bike time is something really valuable. When you’re in the UK, for me, it’s too cold and I can’t ride as much as I want to and it’s muddy… For getting fit it’s perfect, it’s absolutely fine, you can graft on through that, but quality bike time is hard to find so I gonna head out to New Zealand. I’ve got loads of sunshine hours, I’ve got dry weather and a chairlift nearby that I can just do runs on.
Where is your favourite place to ride?
Still Whistler! Just because it’s got such a huge variety of trails. Tasmania was one of my favourite [EWS] rounds in terms of riding, it was just amazing. But it doesn't have the depth of trails for doing more than a weekend. Yeah, Whistler is like a dreamland.
What do you think about the coverage of female mountain biking?
I’m really proud to be a part of the EWS. I think they really do a good job of equal male and female coverage. It’s leading the way in terms of stuff like that. So, I’m pretty happy with that. They’re doing a really good job and I don’t feel like the women's racing is a secondary thing, I feel like it’s totally equal. People are as interested in the female racing as they are in the males, and they cover it in that way. It’s great because then the people know about the female racing as well as the men’s.
