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When it comes to biking, Harriet Burbidge-Smith has everything covered
From winning titles as a BMX racer, to transitioning to mountain bike and helping to uplift pro women's riding, Harriet Burbidge-Smith might just be the future of her sport.
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When it comes to ones to watch, few riders out there are as exciting as eight-time Australian BMX Champion and two-time amateur BMX World Champ winner Harriet Burbidge-Smith. At 25, she’s a double threat, having excelled in BMX racing before making the switch to mountain bike, which she says offers her more creativity, freedom and opportunities to stay stoked on her sport.
What’s more, Burbidge-Smith is a die-hard ambassador for women and girls in biking, running female-only training camps and never missing an opportunity to uplift her fellow female riders who are bringing the gnar.
Harriet Burbidge-Smith has much more still to achieve in her biking career
© Andy Green/Red Bull Content Pool
Burbidge-Smith is the latest athlete to line up for Red Bull's popular MTB Raw series. The edit was naturally filmed in her native Australia, when the Canberra-born pro popped across from the mainland to Tasmania to the Maydena Bike Park gravity facility in the Derwent Valley.
With her MTB Raw clip dropping, we thought it’d be a good opportunity to (re)introduce you to a woman whose career to date is the very definition of ‘killing it’.
Harriet! How are you? Talk us through how you got started riding bikes
Maydena was the perfect place for Burbidge-Smith to show off her skills
© Andy Green/Red Bull Content Pool
Why did you decide to leave BMX behind after excelling in it for so long?
BMX was a massive part of me growing up. I spent most of my time at the track or going to races. I got a few world titles in my age classes, which at the time was everything to me. Then I did some UCI World Cup meets and got some alright results, but I was still trying to figure out what wasn’t clicking. Obviously I knew that I loved riding bikes, but when I did my first mountain bike event at Crankworx it felt like the last piece of the puzzle came together.
What is it about mountain biking that fills that hole?
Mountain biking has this creativity to it that I didn’t feel in BMX racing. I am a competitive person and I do like the competitive side of riding, but I feel like with mountain biking you can have that and also have this creative and free aspect with freeriding, like creating content with your friends. Mountain biking allows me to do both, which just works really well with my personality.
Non-stop riding and having fun is what makes Burbidge-Smith happy
© Andy Green/Red Bull Content Pool
Learning and growing her riding, and as a person, is important too
© Andy Green/Red Bull Content Pool
Tell us more about your shoot for this MTB Raw edit in Australia?
I guess we all wanted to film in Australia. The first thought was Maydena. It's pretty underrated to be honest, considering how sick it is. There's freeride lines you can ride and it also has some of the techie features that I've been able to ride around the world, and of course there's fast-paced jump lines there too. You can get so much out top to bottom really... The whole experience was epic, and I feel like the end result shows that Tassie is such a sick place to ride.
Women’s freeride is having a great journey at the moment. How has that been to watch?
It’s awesome. I’ve met some really great female riders and I like seeing them be successful in what they’re going. This level of talent was already there to an extent, but it wasn’t given a platform. Now that it has you’re going to start seeing it more and people will think there’s this crazy amount of change, but it’s been there the past few years under the radar.
Burbidge-Smith has been invited to the 2022 edition of Red Bull Formation
© Andy Green/Red Bull Content Pool
Who should we watch out for?
There are so many up and coming riders that are really sick. Brooke Anderson is from the US. She’s 14/15 and she’s really cool to watch, and I’m exciting to see what she does in freeride. The same with Canadian Natasha Miller, she’s one of the young girls that’s killing it in slopestyle now and I’m keen to see where she goes in the future. There’s so much talent at the moment and hopefully I can be a part of that in some way.
You have been a part of it, actively mentoring young female riders
Yeah, I have a mentor event in Australia called Momentum. At last year’s event I joined in with the guys, but this year I thought we could open it up and it would be good to have a camp beforehand to get girls interested in the sport and push to have something in Australia they could look forward to and work towards. After that, we got eight girls that entered into a slopestyle contest, which is awesome.
The competitive spirit still burns in Burbidge-Smith, she still races
© Andy Green/Red Bull Content Pool
What do you hope is next for women’s freeride?
It’d be sick to see more events with guys and girls. And more content; I feel like there isn’t enough video content out there. But in general, keeping the stoke with everyone. Push but just go have fun with your mates. I think it needs the platform and it’s coming with more and more events.
What’s next for you personally?
I’ll go to Canada and the US soon [She's an invited athlete for Red Bull Formation 2022 in May], there’ll be a bunch of us girls riding together and filming, which will be really exciting. We have some events there then we’ll head off and start the Crankworx series. I’m keen to get back to Utah and do some filming there. It’s a scary place, you have to respect it, but in general I think my riding is better than ever. I’m comfortable on the bike and I’m more confident than ever going into the season.
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