Haley

I lost fifteen seconds at Nové Město in 2022 because I couldn’t see a root. Not because my glasses were fogged they weren’t but because the lens tint I’d chosen that morning couldn’t distinguish the wet root from the surrounding mud in the dappled forest light. I saw it maybe a half-second before my front … Read more

I crashed at Snowshoe in 2019 on a rock garden I’d cleaned dozens of times in practice. Nothing dramatic just a slight mistiming on a line I knew well, front wheel washing out, knee meeting West Virginia limestone at race pace. The abrasion wasn’t severe, but it became infected within three days despite proper cleaning. … Read more

I lost seventeen seconds in Albstadt last year because I second-guessed myself the night before. My mechanic and I had settled on a setup Vittoria Mezcal front, Barzo rear, 19 PSI front, 21 rear but I watched another rider on my team swap to something grippier after the morning recon lap, and I panicked. Changed … Read more

I noticed something was wrong about forty minutes into the Nové Město World Cup. My hands were sliding not dramatically, but enough that I was gripping harder than I should have been, burning matches in my forearms that I’d need for the final two laps. The morning had been damp, the grip compound I’d been … Read more

I unclipped clean on the start loop at Lenzerheide, swung through the first corner, went to clip back in and missed. Then missed again. By the time I was locked in, I’d lost six positions and spent the next four laps burning matches I didn’t have trying to get them back. The cause was microscopic: … Read more

I crashed at Albstadt in 2019 with bare hands. Not intentionally I’d torn a glove on a rock garden during the practice lap and figured I could get through the race without it. Forty minutes later, I was picking gravel out of my palm with tweezers while my mechanic tried not to say “I told … Read more

I crashed at Leogang in 2019 and don’t remember the rock that split my helmet open. I remember the start loop, the compression before the rock garden, and then waking up in the medical tent with a headache that lasted three days. The helmet, a model I’d chosen mostly because it matched my kit, did … Read more

The first time I rode off-trail at night, I was using a $40 light I’d bought online because it claimed 1,200 lumens and I didn’t know enough to question that number. Fifteen minutes into what should have been a familiar loop near my home in Colorado, I misjudged a root section I’d ridden hundreds of … Read more

I lost a World Cup podium position because of shorts. At least, that’s the story I tell myself, the clean narrative that explains an 11-second gap to third at Albstadt. The truth is messier. I’d torn my race shorts two days before, the replacement pair my team sourced locally was heavier with a chamois that … Read more

I lost thirty seconds at a World Cup because my right shoe wouldn’t release. The mud at Nové Město had packed into the cleat mechanism so thoroughly that when I needed to put a foot down on a steep switchback a section I’d cleaned in practice twice I couldn’t unclip. I went over the bars … Read more