Recently, I sat down with Madigan Munro to find out exactly what being a champion female mountain biker is like. From her pre-race routine to her hopes for the future, Munro informed me about all the quirks of the sport. 

Her explosive career started when she was 11, when she began to take mountain biking seriously as a sport. Her parents were mountain bikers and have taken Munro and her sister out riding since they were young, but she only began to race at the age of 13. Shortly after, she joined the Boulder High Mountain Biking team. She’s raced with BHS for the past four years but has only been a part of Boulder Junior Cycling (her club team) for the past two years. 

On race day, Munro eats two scrambled eggs with salt and pepper and oatmeal with cinnamon. Besides her routine breakfast, she said her only other “superstition” with racing is that she wears the same socks for every BHS race. During her races, Maddie said that what she thinks about “depends on the race – sometimes it’s ‘oh my gosh I’m dying’ or ‘wow my legs hurt’ and other times it’s ‘wow these girls are fast.’” I’m sure they’re still eating her dust, but her modesty is unmatched.

 With her club team, Munro often travels for competitions. She named her biggest and most exciting accomplishment (so far) as when she “raced in world championships this past summer and placed sixth in the junior girls’ category.” Munro also loved the world championship because of the location. She said that being in Canada was “the coolest place mountain biking has brought her” because “it was super pretty and had lots of good riding.” One of her idols, Kate Courtney, actually won the World Championships two years ago. Madigan admires the 23-year-old not only as a mountain biker but also as an intellectual, as Courtney recently graduated from Stanford. “I definitely look up to her a lot,”said Munro.

When asked if she could ever see her life without mountain biking, Munro immediately responded with a hard “no.” She hopes to ride in college and maybe even professionally one day. This makes sense as Madigan’s love for the sport is evident. She said that she loves almost every aspect of the sport — being able to travel and meet new people with similar interests, watching her idols race, and hearing the encouraging fans along the track. Munroe also adores the fans and athletes that make up the MTB community She says while her club team is more competitive and intense, the entire community is “still really encouraging and super fun.”

Make sure to keep an eye out for Madigan Munro in the future as she continues to take the world by storm with her incredible mountain biking abilities.