Bec Henderson at Andorra cross country world champs 2024

Bec Henderson: Chasing form, the state of UCI World Cup cross country and the new Continental Series

Rebecca Henderson, Australia's most successful cross country rider, reflects on her 2024 season.

Anna Beck 15.01.2025

Rebecca Henderson is Australia’s most successful cross country rider. At 33, Bec has raced overseas since she was a junior, with a swag of World Cup wins in U19, U23 and a stellar three-peat of World Cup wins in 2022. We caught up with Bec to discuss her 2024 season, what keeps her motivated, the new UCI Continental Mountain Bike Series and the state of World Cup mountain biking in 2025.

In 2024 you’ve had some actually pretty phenomenal results that people might not even register. You had so many really outstanding short course (XCC) results and were consistently within the top 20 in the cross country olympic races, can you walk us through how 2024 unfolded for you? 

Yeah that’s probably true. I’m probably one of those people who maybe don’t also recognise some of the good results I’ve had this year, I think. Because I felt I had so much go wrong, and just was never able to…kind of…catch a break I guess. 

Bec Henderson finishing the XC world champs 2024 in Andorra
The pain face is real

I think from my side I felt like I was never really rewarded with results for all the work that I put in, so I think even for me to reflect, I don’t, like, I don’t even think about the short course but I think I had a few podiums in there and in the end I was third in the overall which is not bad of course. 

So yeah…I think it’s like it’s probably a way better year than I realise, but I got buried in not delivering on the races that I really wanted to, so I think I left pretty frustrated if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely. I also think that the XCC probably doesn’t get as much attention as the cross country Olympic format, does it? So you’ve been crushing that, and it’s super fun racing to watch, but that maybe represents you being a little bit of a different racer in 2024 as well. Would you agree with that? 

Yeah I mean I guess we all—especially people my generation—got into racing for cross country, and like that’s really the pinnacle, and for me short track is something I have to do to get a good start and whatnot in cross country. But for sure, the training and all the focus is still always around cross country, and that’s why it’s so nice to get podiums or wins, but like we want to deliver on Sunday.

Bec Henderson XCC racing at Andorra
Bec Henderson giving it her all on the tough Andorran climbs

So I think yeah, I mean it’s a super fun discipline to watch and like it’s cool but we all know what’s really really important. So I think this year now I guess it’s ‘keep trying’, I guess.

Yeah, keep on keeping on. So I mean that you probably can’t tell us too much about what you’re doing for this year yet but are we assuming a return to World Cup racing? 

Yeah, definitely definitely. 

I think I’m not working this hard to not come back to the World Cup. Yeah, that’s all it comes out on the win. For 2025 I am with Orbea Factory Team.

So I was just wanting to check that you weren’t going to switch approach, and go to the Lifetime Grand Prix in the USA like we have seen many athletes do…and I’m like ‘that’s not really your sort of vibe’. I just wanted to check that that wasn’t some crazy about-face with your racing in 2025.

Yeah, no, I’m definitely still like very motivated to race cross country. I think I still have more to give, and the back after the season was actually quite good. I still didn’t quite get it together but I think I can still be competitive and I still want to try. I still have the motivation to do it. Cross country is my place. I’m definitely not ready to go to other avenues yet, so it’s definitely where I want to be. 

And in terms of that motivation; you’ve been racing since were, you know, a squirt. You were tiny when you began. What keeps you motivated? Is it seeking your best self? Is it seeking domination or crushing people? What is your personal sort of motivation weapon, your carrot and/or stick? 

I think it’s just need to get all of it from myself. You know I’m so, so grateful that the stars aligned and everything came together to win three World Cups, for me it’s still incredible because there have been times when I’ve had like the form to maybe win or at least be on the podium and you have flats or mechanicals or crashes, whatever it is.

Bec hammering the descents at Andorra

I’m super, super grateful that it happened but at the same time like this year, in the second last World Cup I was doing numbers in the race that I did when I was winning, so it makes me feel like I still have more inside me to give. You know, I may never win again, but I want to squeeze everything out of myself and see if I can make the stars align again. Whatever the result is, it is what it is, but I think I wouldn’t be satisfied yet to feel like I got the best out of myself.

Interesting! So I guess with that, I have two questions, the first one; has the overall level increased so much that you need to increase your numbers every single year to be competitive, and the second is; do you think there’s something that would allow you to feel that you are settled or happy with your career? Is there a goal that would make you feel like ‘I’ve achieved this and I’m content’? 

Yeah I don’t know about the numbers. I think I would say possibly yes that it’s like you have to level up every year and keep doing it because yeah, I mean my first top 10 in the World Cup was, I think, in 2015 and I am so much better of an athlete now than I was then. Still, to achieve a top 15 is like…you’re on a good day…so I think the level is just constantly increasing, which is like such a challenge as an athlete you constantly have to find ways to improve.

But yeah but I also think you know maybe there is a cap at the top and I arrived there once. This year when I did do those numbers, like [the same numbers as when] when I was winning, and I had a horrendous start and then like in the race I was lapping the fastest in the race. So I think kind of that highest level you know what you have to do to be there. And if you can do it, you’re gonna be there or thereabouts.

Bec putting the power through the pedals

But yeah, I think the numbers are creeping up season by season.

As for being content and satisfied, I think like my feeling is that to race cross country you have to like to be able to give everything, train with all your passion for every session and I think it’s so unique in that kind of way.

Whereas I think in road racing, not every athlete has to give 100%. You could be like sort of in a support role, and I think, you know, just that you know you could do one per cent less, and you can still do a good job and be less miserable. 

Whereas for us we’re so exposed, and I think the motivation for me would be a big indicator when I can’t give everything to my training. 

At the moment, if I’m doing a test or if I’m doing hard efforts, I still get nervous and I still feel that pressure on myself to perform in my intervals, and I think when that goes away, that would be a bit of an indicator that I’m probably don’t have it inside me any more to do it. 

I think it’s less about achieving a specific result, but when I lose the joy or that feeling of progression in the races. I know I’m old at 33, but I still feel like I’m improving and like my experience is, I’m able to lean into that a bit more now than just trying to be fit and trying to have good numbers. I’m still learning, so I think I still can keep going a little longer.

I think about the exciting thing about bike races: there’s no endpoint, is there? There’s no reaching the absolute pinnacle. Even if you have won World Championships or had the perfect race, you’re probably still able to identify things that you could do better. Even riders like Sam Hill, you know, Sam’s never reaching the end of optimising his cornering. 

Yeah, exactly exactly 

So, obviously big changes with the UCI and the streaming of the World Cup How does this change racing for you in 2025? 

Yeah that’s an interesting question because I’m also the rider rep for UCI for the athletes so I’ve been there for the last four years. This will be my last season doing it, and to be fair, I’m not particularly motivated to do another four years of it. There are some good things and bad things with Warner Bros, but there’s been a lot of …where you feel like you’re hitting a brick wall. Maybe it’s where I’m at in my personal life as well, and my own struggles, but it’s like sometimes it just makes me feel like I’m glad I don’t have another 10 to 15 years ahead of me in the sport at the moment. I think we had a good thing, and I’m sure that Warner Bros is going to progress the sport a lot, but there are a lot of things that I think are potentially doing more harm than good. 

I’m just staying out of it and trying to focus on doing my best in the races with whatever the scenario is that we are given. I think it’s so frustrating and disappointing that there is no central place for people to watch the World Cup, that’s the biggest thing I’m seeing is people asking ‘where can I watch it?’. I’m like ‘well…depends where you are’, like I don’t even know how to watch it! 

Do you one of the consequences of the UCI changes to teams, including increased fees for taking part in the World Cup in 2025, will mean that some of the riders that frequent the World Cup race scene will be left without a ride for 2025? 

Yeah, the market was so cutthroat this season, like post-Olympics, and like there’s been a huge amount of changes, I think more than we’ve probably ever seen before. I think there are riders being left without a team. It’s such a complicated topic because we want the World Cup to be global, but at the same time, the bike industry is not killing it right now. So there’s less money for the teams at the moment, and they’re expected to travel more and the costs are going up. 

Rebecca Henderson racing cross country worlds 2024 in Andorra

So everything is getting more expensive, and then they’ve just taken away the top five podiums, so now there’s only three, which takes away more value from the riders and the teams, but it doesn’t give anything in return. So there are things going on to make it harder for the teams, which in turn results in fewer places for the riders, and it’s definitely affected a lot of things this year. 

Maybe adding even more pressure on the athletes as well to be able to, you know, prove their place, their worth?

Yeah, but it’s also forcing salaries down because, I think for the top riders, maybe the salaries are going up, but for the riders that are just like entering and into the market will undercut you and ride for nothing just for expenses not wages, so it makes it really hard for people just to get a base salary to race.

Yeah that’s tricky. That’s tricky. They have introduced the UCI Continental series as a bit of a stepping stone to address this, because federation entries into the World Cup have been reduced down to two per World Cup. The Continental Series events are coming to New Zealand and Canberra, with the Stromlo event taking place in March. Can us humble humans and weekend warriors pin on a race place and line up against you there?

Yeah, yeah, I’m going to New Zealand this week on Thursday! 

Excellent! Then obviously you’ve got one in your backyard at Stromlo

Yes, I’ll be doing whatever has UCI points! 

But yeah, we’ve had races every year for almost as long as I can remember, like national-level races, which I always try to do. For sure this year I’m super happy and grateful that we have some UCI races with points. Even in New Zealand this weekend it’s I’m going because it’s super worthwhile so I think it’s a huge step forward and like makes it possible get some UCI points here. There’s probably not that many riders [Ed: in Oceania] at the moment looking for points. 

We don’t have that many riders racing overseas this year, I imagine, but I mean for me it’s huge and I will try to take advantage of that as much as possible…I’m sure Sammy Maxwell might be looking for a place to stay in Canberra when the race is on! I think it’s like it’s really good.

And racing at Stromlo, you’ve had a lot of memories on the World Cup course there. What do you think makes that really tough course so special to you? 

Yeah, I have so many memories racing here, and some of my memories from when I was in under-17s, the real cool memories when I couldn’t race with the elite women in the cross country, but I could go on a short track. I just remember racing after the bushfires when it was crazy hot and crazy dusty, and just loving that hard, hard racing with girls that were way better than me.

But yeah, World Champs was here and we’ve had nationals and national series, we’ve had everything. I would like to personally see it move away from being stuck on that cardiac and hammerhead duo. I think that sometimes it can deter a lot of people from coming and racing. I think Stromlo offers so much more than that, so I hope that the racing can become a little bit more inclusive and people will be more eager to come and participate 

Yeah, they have announced that one of the days of racing will have an alternative course to the World Cup course. I think the justification for frequently running the Cardiac Climb and Hammerhead descent from the World Cup is that racing in Europe is very technically hard, and people need to learn how to ride very technically hard stuff. The World Cup courses in Europe are quite obviously insane technically at times. Though it’s a very different sort of technical to what you see on the Stromlo World Cup course at Stromlo, would you agree? 

Yeah, I think it’s like that, but not all of the courses are crazy: sometimes they’re just crazy cause they’re muddy, or sometimes it’s the racing that mostly makes it crazy. 

I think focusing on, like, ‘Oh well, racing in Europe is crazy hard, so we need to make it crazy hard here,’ but we aren’t at that level. We want to be more inclusive, and we have this facility here that everybody’s welcome to train on outside of the races, and I think, you know, sometimes a less challenging course can actually make for way better racing. 

It also gives some of the younger riders an opportunity to follow the older elite riders for a little bit longer, or stay in the race a bit longer. There may be different benefits to having a less intimidating and just like ridiculously hard-core course to race on.

It’s great that event organisers, CORC, are planning to have the Sunday race as a more inclusive and accessible race course.

Yes, absolutely. The difficulty of the World Cup course is not necessarily hammerhead. It’s cardiac climb; it’s a singletrack brutal climb that most people can’t ride, and have to get off to run. I don’t think I’ve done a race at Stromlo where I’ve cleaned it every single lap, so I think that’s a pretty hard benchmark. 

If you ride the whole thing one lap and the others don’t, you’ve ridden away and that’s that!

With all your local knowledge would you offer some hot tips for people who are looking at racing the Continental series at Stromlo?

I would definitely say if they’re doing cardiac make time to do some course recon and you have to really pace yourself and not blow up because that’s one way you’ll pay a huge penalty later in the race if you do blow up .

Changing direction quickly, How’s Lenny? 

He is just sitting here next to me. He’s always so good. 

Lenny the dog

Are you going to be able to take him overseas next year?

I don’t think I’m going to take him because I’m planning to come back to Australia mid-season. The schedule has a five or six-week gap in the middle of the season, so I’m going to come home and brave the Canberra winter. I’ll go to Brazil, come back, and then it’s a nine-week block, then I’ll come back, and then it’ll be a seven-week block. It seems just a little bit easier to get my head around. 

This year, I’m really working hard to be ready for Brazil, and I’d like to get something on the board this year. Then, if it works out, great; if it doesn’t, then it’s back to the drawing board for part two. I feel like it’s a good opportunity to take advantage of like really stable training environment and hot weather to be ready.

Keep building that momentum into and then after Brazil, and keep on a roll, that’ll be cool!

Yeah, last year I was thereabouts, but yeah, I definitely like to see what’s possible again.