Crankworx World Tour, Red Bull Formation: Harriet Burbidge-Smith living life in the fast lane
Broken bones and bruising concussions are just part of the price Aussie MTB star Harriet Burbidge-Smith pays to spend time on the Crankworx Tour - and she wouldn’t have it any other way.
Just hold on and hope nothing breaks.
And if it does, get back up and go again anyway.
That’s the mentality fuelling the death-defying feats which Harriet Burbidge-Smith calls fun.
Broken collarbones. Back-to-back knee reconstructions. Concussions that would make a footballer pause.
They’re all part and parcel for the Canberra native, who says it’s simply the bodily toll that must be paid to live the lifestyle of a world-class freeride MTB athlete.
If there’s a voice in her head or angel on the shoulder, the 26 year old long stopped listening.
“It’s something I think you have to accept a lot of the time and if you can’t accept it, you just don’t get back on the bike,” she says.
“That’s how it is for some people and I think that’s totally respectable. But for me the enjoyment and fulfilment and everything that comes with it outweighs (the crashes and injuries).
“I couldn’t be satisfied with life if I stopped, so I’m able to look past it.
“The only thing I ever worry about is getting injured means I have to stop riding my bike. Thinking about time off the bike is the most frustrating thing of all.”
Burbidge-Smith believes she is one of the “lucky” ones, because her body has so far stood the test.
But in the crucible of the Crankworx World Tour – the elite series featuring the world’s best freeride MTB athletes – it’s often as much a mental battle as it is physical.
Case in point her heavy stack in New Zealand earlier this year, which left her “bleeding out my nose and mouth”.
“I made a mistake on my flip and came down hard … in the heat of the moment I got up too quickly and finished my run thinking I could bring it back, but I ended up crashing quite hard after that,” she recalls.
“I’ve never made a mistake like that on a flip. It was more mentally frustrating than anything for me, but thankfully I was all good.”
How about the two 🇦🇺 gettin' it done at Cairns @Crankworx 🤘ðŸ¼
— AusCycling (@AusCyclingAus) October 7, 2022
🥇 Harriet Burbidge-Smith
🥉@CBuchanan68#crankworx#Cairnspic.twitter.com/zWKDGDCnaZ
Putting the pain and disappointment behind her, Burbidge-Smith returned the following day to send down a scintillating Slalom run that was good for Gold.
“It was definitely a battle – I was very sore. Luckily the Slalom ran quick, because I couldn’t stop riding otherwise I would get too stiff and sore.
“I was pretty wrecked at that point.”
The life of a freeride MTB athlete is not for everyone.
Burbidge-Smith lives on the road for much of the year, often spending each month in a different country.
From March to November it’s eat, sleep, race, repeat.
This week the Crankworx World Tour stops over in Cairns and Burbidge-Smith will be out to defend her Speed & Style win from 2022.
The Far North Queensland leg is an emotional one for the Red Bull athlete, who rarely gets the chance to see friends from home.
“It’s also on my birthday this year, so all my mates who weren’t able to come last year will be there,” she says.
“Crankworx is a really special event for me. All the stops have such meaning.
“Last year was so special getting to win in front of a home crowd and winning a Speed & Style I felt really proud, because of the tricks I was able to perform and how I rode that day.”
In the race for the Queen of Crankworx, Burbidge-Smith has some ground to cover.
She sits fifth in the standings on 180 points, with fellow Australian and reigning champion Caroline Buchanan leading the way on 334 points.
But it’s a quality over quantity approach to this season that Burbidge-Smith hopes can elevate her into title contention over the next few rounds.
“Last year I was trying to be a bit of an all-rounder by doing every event – that was for good reason, because I feel like I can be competitive in every event,” she says.
“But this year and for the future I think I’ll start to specialise more in free riding and honing my strengths in the sport and where I want to go.
“Narrowing it down to Speed & Style, Slopestyle and Slalom makes my week a little less hectic and helps me focus on the stuff I know I can perform in.”
CHASING A DREAM
There’s good reason Burbidge-Smith sees herself as an all-rounder. Because for all of her life, she has been.
The training wheels came off when she was just three and by the time her next birthday rolled around, the young prodigy was entrenched in BMX.
That became her bread and butter – two amateur world championships and eight national titles followed over a storeyed career – though Burbidge-Smith also had stints in velodrome, road criteriums and cross country mountainbiking.
“But I always came back to BMX.”
The sport made its Summer Olympics debut at Beijing 2008 and from then it was a dream shared by just about every BMX athlete to compete for Gold and glory.
In 2016 her dreams took a major hit, when she required knee reconstructions in both legs over a horrific 12-month period.
Two years later while in Canada for a BMX event, a friend invited Burbidge-Smith to Crankworx at Whistler.
“At the time I was working at a bike shop so they lent me a bike and yeah, that was the start of it,” she recalls.
“I couldn’t believe that kind of event was a thing. It absolutely blew my mind.”
With her eyes opened to a whole new world of competitive biking, it wasn’t long before Burbidge-Smith made the difficult decision to abandon her Olympic BMX dream.
“I think at the time, yeah, it was really hard to let it go,” she says.
“It was a sport I had competed in since I was four years old; it was how I grew up. I started it before I started school and kept going after I had finished school, so it was definitely a hard (sport) to leave.
“But once I competed in my first MTB event I felt so much more at home. I felt like I had found a group of people and sport that suited me a lot better.
“It was hard. I was walking away from what I had thought – since I was a kid – would be my career. My direction and everything that came with it – the Olympics and things like that – was over.
“But I also didn’t for a second regret it. I still don’t.”
MTB Rider Harriet Burbidge-Smith "Sound Of Speed". An incredibly well edited MTB video. NOT MY CONTENT. @redbullau@haznationbikes#redbullau#redbull#mtb#soundofspeed#downhill#harrietburbidgesmithpic.twitter.com/4ABKDafKi9
— TommoNineSixThree (@Tommo963) May 12, 2022
POWER OF A PLATFORM
“I remember watching all these old MTB films and there weren’t any women in them. I didn’t even think it was a pathway until Red Bull Formation in 2020 – that opened my eyes up massively,” Burbidge-Smith recalls.
“That’s when I thought this freeride thing could be it.”
Put simply, Formation has changed the game.
It’s the all-female version of Red Bull Rampage – the greatest freeride MTB event in the world – and it’s not for the faint hearted.
An invitation-only ultimate test for any adrenaline junkie with two wheels and too much courage; Formation is the annual pilgrimage that pits eight of the best against Mother Nature’s most challenging terrain.
Since the inaugural running in 2020, Formation has gone from strength to strength and last year, Burbidge-Smith joined the fold.
As one of the premiere content creators in the MTB space, the Aussie mastered the Utah desert in what has become the ultimate expression of biking freedom.
Between Formation and Crankworx, the platform for women’s freeride MTB has arrived.
And Burbidge-Smith’s passion – beyond mastering jumps and winning events – is helping build a sport that will allow future female riders to express themselves, just as she has been able to.
“Formation for me was the breakthrough. It’s where I met all these amazing girls that I now travel the world with, film and push each other,” she says.
“Now, finally, there is an avenue for young girls – 17 and 18 – to go straight into freeride, whereas before the pathway was World Cup racing, do freeride on the side and then hopefully bring sponsors across.
“If you talk to any of the girls in freeride now, they all had to start in racing.
“All the events we are part of now are growing so much and I hope that all the young girls and women who want to pursue freeride and big film projects can do that, because until recently it just hasn’t had the funding.
“People keep telling me, ‘Women’s freeride has progressed so much over the past few years’ – yeah, because we’ve finally started getting invited to events.
“It’s a very clear distinction: you start inviting us, we’ll start going, and then you’ll see the progression.
“Because we’re ready and willing.”
Crankworx Cairns hits Smithfield MTB park on May 17-21.
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