On a sunny weekend in October 2013, Tracy Moseley was crowned the first ever Enduro World Champion. Moseley, AKA TMo, came to the inaugural Enduro World Series from a highly successful career in downhill MTB racing.
We talked to her about how she got started in mountain biking, and why she made the switch to enduro.
“I grew up on a dairy farm, and I always rode bikes; old BMXs, massive old road bikes, even motorbikes.
When I was about 14, we went on a family holiday to see some friends in Suffolk, and they owned a bike shop. This was when mountain biking was just starting to pick up momentum in the UK, so they’d started stocking some. We came home from the trip with two of what were then cutting edge mountain bikes!
MTB, racing and home-made northshore
My brother Ed, who was a bit older, started riding with a few local lads that had got into biking around Malvern. There was a little club, a few small races started happening, and then the Malvern Hills Classic, which is still a really big mountain bike event, was only 6 miles down the road from me. My brother went and entered, and I went and watched.
Ed was a big influence on me. We used to ride a lot together on the farm. We made northshore before ‘northshore’ was really a thing, we rode planks and corners, and headed of into the woods to ride ridiculously steep stuff that even now I think ‘what on Earth was I doing?’
I was probably 15 at the time, riding this huge bike, 21 inch frame – I now ride a 17 inch frame – with the seat slammed down to the top tube, just going for it ‘cos I knew nothing better.
My brother used to say ‘you should have a go’ at racing, I basically followed him, and it all just snowballed from there.
World Cup Downhill racing
I spent 12 years on the World Cup Downhill circuit, and it was getting to the point where I was enjoying spending more time out trail riding than training for downhill.
I wasn’t enjoying having to go drive somewhere, push my bike or sit on an uplift to get runs in, and get so little time actually on my bike. I think as you get older you enjoy the riding itself more.
With DH, I enjoyed the fitness, I enjoyed the training, but I wasn’t enjoying risking so much anymore – having to jump massive gaps and throw myself down the mountain. You get older, you get more sensible, and you realise how much it hurts.
But I still had this underlying goal that was yet to be achieved – to become World Champion.
I’d won multiple World Cups, I’d even won a whole World Cup series, but I hadn’t won the World Champs, that one thing. It was eating at me so I just had to keep going. For the last few years of DH racing that’s probably the only thing that kept me doing it. I wasn’t enjoying the racing as much, but I needed to win this before I could stop.
UCI World Champion
In 2010, I finally did it, and straight away I had this sense of ‘Okay, what’s next?’ I kept riding DH for 2011 – I’d always said if I did win Worlds I’d do another year wearing the rainbow jersey, ‘cos I’d spent 12 years trying to win the damn thing!
I also ended up having probably my best ever year, and won the 2011 World Cup Series. I thought ‘now its time for me to stop’. I’d done what I wanted to achieve, and I wanted to finish while I was at the top – something you always hope will be the case.
I was very fortunate because around the same time the enduro scene was just starting to take off. I decided to take a year, transition, and give enduro racing a go. I did a couple of DH races to keep my sponsors happy but I knew that I was finished with it.
At the end of 2012 the Enduro World Series was launched, and I think I was just pretty damn lucky. I was ready to do something new, this was the perfect time, and I could start to enjoy riding again.
Enduro World Champion 2013
It feels almost unreal to have had such a good season and taken the World Title in the first ever year ! It took me 12yrs to win that title in downhill ! I’ve loved the variety of trails and the new challenge that enduro racing has given me this season.
Congratulations Tracy on becoming the 2013 Enduro World Champion!
