Former Leadville 100 champion Hannah Otto (Scott Sports activities) would not simply search lengthy rides to problem her health and develop her definition of what’s laborious, she makes it her job to knock out quickest recognized instances (FKT’s) and nonetheless have fuel within the tank to compete at Mountain Bike World Championships in addition to end excessive within the standings of the Life Time Grand Prix (LTGP).
Forward of the fourth race within the Grand Prix collection at Chequamegon on September 13, Otto will signify Workforce USA on the UCI Marathon MTB World Championships in Switzerland this Saturday. Final yr on dwelling soil in West Virginia, Otto was sixteenth in her first Marathon Worlds look.
The reigning US Marathon mountain bike nationwide champion this time, Otto will compete alongside Kate Courtney (She Sends Racing) in a 125km (78-mile) route from Verbier to Grimentz with 5,025 metres (16,486 toes) of elevation acquire. That is extra climbing than Leadville compacted right into a shorter distance. The boys’s workforce will characteristic three-time Grand Prix champion Keegan Swenson (Santa Cruz) and males’s US marathon MTB winner Cole Paton (Large Bicycles).
“I am very impressed with the course they’ve arrange. It is about 80 miles with as much as 17,000 toes of climbing. It will likely be notably brutal, which I am fairly enthusiastic about. I really like competing on the world stage,” Otto advised Cyclingnews.
After a day within the Swiss Alps, she’ll fly again to the US for Chequamegon MTB in Wisconsin, seeking to increase her placement within the Grand Prix from tenth after three occasions. Otto is likely one of the handful of athletes, ladies and men, who’ve competed in all 4 years of the LTGP and completed within the prime 10 every of the previous three seasons.
“I am undoubtedly seeking to maintain that streak alive,” she stated of focusing on a fourth prime 10, the place riders cut up a $180,000 money purse on the finish of the season.
“This yr does provide a little bit little bit of a unique situation. [The series] began with two gravel races in a row, which put extra of the mountain bikers on the again foot. Having reached the midway level after Leadville, realizing that the subsequent two races are mountain bike races, I feel it units it as much as have some fairly good shifts. It creates a fairly aggravating dynamic for all the opposite occasions.”
Off the crushed path occasions go well with Otto and he or she considers herself a mountain biker fairly than only a gravel racer. From the Mediterranean Epic mountain bike stage race, the place she got here fourth total, to a prime 20 at Unbound Gravel 200 and a second consecutive podium on the 50-mile Whiskey Offroad, she switches between the disciplines simply. And now she has accomplished the Moab Triple Crown, a set of non-race efforts for FKT achievements – Entire Enchilada, Kokopelli and White Rim trails within the excessive desert terrain of Utah.
Otto developed the Triple Crown after she moved from school in Missouri to Salt Lake Metropolis space of Utah in 2018 to check her all-around mountain biking expertise on three very completely different trails. She now has set FKT’s for all three trails – the 55-mile Entire Enchilada in 2022, 140-mile Kokopelli in 2024 on her second try, and 100-mile White Rim. The 100-mile White Rim path greatest time had been 6 hours and 51 minutes and he or she beat that by 13 minutes on Might 2, 2025.
“I would not say that these FKTs are preparation for any of the races. In reality, since we race such lengthy occasions [in the Grand Prix] we’ve to be actually clever about how we use these matches. As a result of despite the fact that individuals see us racing these occasions weekend after weekend, the truth of the scenario is we’re racing the time period of Ironman [triathlon].
“These are very lengthy, laborious occasions and laborious on our our bodies, and so we’ve to be actually clever about when and the way we do these efforts. And so these actions are one thing that I’ve undoubtedly fallen in love with.”
A former collegiate champion in cyclocross in addition to cross-country and quick observe cross-country in mountain biking, she’s now hooked on performances of 5 to 10 hours. Otto twice gained the XTERRA Novice World Championship in triathlon, so a return to these lengthy efforts was acquainted territory.
No race or experience is ever the identical twice, even for those who reverse the course or return a number of instances to the identical path. And that’s in full distinction to her first and final identify, a palindrome in each cases. There isn’t any repeatable sample to her schedule, each effort a brand new problem.
“The true problem for me is determining the place I can place FKTs within the calendar. And for me, Might was a good time, as a result of I used to be giving off a extremely large block to coach for Unbound, and I additionally had a while to get better after it.
“The purpose that I’ve on this sport is to display to people who they’re able to a lot greater than they think about. And so I feel providing that visible part so individuals see my struggles, not simply my triumphs,” she stated about her sponsor Aggressive Bicycle owner providing a 20-minute movie on their YouTube channel on her achievement.
“Like the primary time doing Kokopelli, after I fell quick, I feel that is actually vital for individuals to see and perceive that even execs, even the individuals who put all the things into this, nonetheless fall quick generally. That is OK, you simply maintain going.
“That first try on the Kokopelli, it utterly modified me. It is the toughest factor I’ve ever completed, and it utterly modified my perspective of what laborious is, whether or not it is life hardship or if it is on the race course,” she stated of lacking the perfect time by quarter-hour as she endured snow and chilly temperatures on the primary try. On the second try she crushed the outdated mark by greater than an hour, in 11 hours 53 minutes.
“I’ve a brand new barometer that I get to match to, and it feels a little bit bit like an excellent energy.”
