Mikayla chats to us en route to the Final World Cup in Val Di Sole!

The accessibility to outdoor sports in Lochaber is incredible. Climbing, biking, skiing, sailing.. anything! When I worked at Nevis Range as a ski instructor I would sometimes cycle into work, get some ski laps in after work then maybe ride some trails on my way home. I think that is pretty special!

Ohhh there are so many! At the moment I think I would have to say Aberfeldy on a dry and dusty day, or Pitlochry, there are some incredible trails getting built over at Glassie bike park!

I’ve been very lucky to ride in so many amazing places! I really enjoyed Maribor in Slovenia when I went there. The World Cup track is so much fun, it has a bit of everything. Jumps, bike park, technical sections. There is also some sweet loamy secret tracks off the side which we had loads of fun lapping.

Haha yeh, coming into this sport to world level from being a beginner not many years before, it was quite surreal to turn up to my first World Cup in 2019 and be racing with the girls I still look up to now. I’ll always look up to Rachel and Tahnee, they are both incredible athletes from the uk and respect everything they have done in their careers so far.

Steve is definitely such a legend, he has a huge part to play with the trail building at Laggan along with his dig crew. He puts his heart and soul into keeping those trails good and making new ones for everyone to enjoy. Steve used to race the Isle of Man TT so I don’t think I even need to explain that the man lives for adrenaline, and I think if you’re wired that way… you’ll always be!

I think the health benefits of staying fit and active is huge, and the more the subject is spoken about the shown, hopefully more people will choose to start cycling or keep on cycling for as long as they want, there is no age limit!

Personally I’d love to see more tracks available to ride on downhill bikes available around the area, maybe somewhere you can uplift in the winter, along those lines. There are so many young kids getting into downhill racing from the area so I think this would really help them progress.

I’m buzzing! I wasn’t into bikes when the world champs came in 2007 so it’s very exciting to be apart of the event this time. Racing Fort William race day for the first time this year was such an incredible experience so it will be even more special to have world champs in my home town!

Ahh this is such a hard one. At the moment I can’t picture myself doing anything different, racing bikes is all I want to do. BUT, if I had to choose and to be realistic (I don’t have very good grades haha) I’d probably go back and study something to do with nutrition and try go into sports nutrition for athletes. I’m also really into designing my own race kit and get so excited when I do it, so maybe I’d try work for a company designing mountain bike clothing.

I’m currently on route to Val Di Sole World Cup, I’m so excited! It’s pretty weird it’s the last World Cup, the season has gone so fast. After that I’ll head back to Fort William and enjoy some downtime with friends and some laps at Nevis Range before they shut for the winter!