AFTER more than 20 years of BMX racing, Harriet (“Haz”) Burbidge-Smith, 27, was invited to experience something new.

“I spent the first years of my professional career doing BMX, but I got invited to a mountain bike event about four years ago, and I kind of fell in love with it, I felt like it fit my vibe better,” she says.

“So, I made the decision to switch to mountain biking, leaving all my sponsors and support from BMX, and starting fresh.”

Haz grew up in Watson, spent her whole life in Canberra, and still comes back to visit her family when she can.

“I’m mostly on the road for nine months of the year. It’s pretty hectic between March and November, and I usually spend the off-season in NZ for the mountain bike trails,” she says.

“My parents noticed that I liked riding from a very young age. I got into BMX riding when I was four years old.

“I don’t do BMX at all any more, it’s quite a challenge to go back to the smaller bikes and I don’t miss it. I think I still get that same enjoyment with mountain biking. I’m just stoked that I get to ride every day.

“It’s very exciting to keep progressing and learning new things, and I’m still so new to it. I just love getting better every day and having that drive to see what I can do, and I don’t know what I would do without it. You can always keep learning, that’s the best part about it.”

Haz says mountain biking can go in so many directions, with freestyle and freeride events or racing cross country and downhill.

“My focus at the moment is obviously the Crankworx world tour which is a little bit of a combination of a couple things. It’s got the head-to-head racing, and then there’s also speed and style which is a mix of both, speed and tricks,” she says.

Crankworx is a touring series of mountain bike festivals that bring together riding athletes to compete at an elite level.

Haz admits she gets nervous, especially after having had her fair share of injuries.

“In my BMX career, I had a bunch of collarbone breaks, and I had both of my knees reconstructed when I was 17 or 18, which was a pretty big setback,” she says.

“In my first year of trying to take on mountain biking full time, I had a pretty bad crash in Europe and suffered some internal bleeding, lacerated my liver and had a really bad concussion. I was in hospital in the Czech Republic for about a month, and that was the same year COVID-19 happened, so it was a rough start to mountain biking.

“I think everyone worries about hurting themselves, because if you do get injured then you can’t ride, but I guess it’s about if you’re willing to keep going.” 

While she admits being slightly biased, Haz says riding in Cairns for Crankworx was a very special feeling.

“It’s a local crowd, my home crowd, and they were the craziest crowd on the tour which is really cool,” she says.

“The kids were just absolutely loving it and I think it’s such a good thing for the Australian scene, because they haven’t really had an event like that, on that level, so it’s great to see, and it was a really good week for me. I performed well so that was just an added bonus. The Cairns speed and style day was my birthday, so that was pretty special, to win gold.

“This year has been really great results wise. The three golds in the tour so far are more than I got last year combined.”

Haz says riding is everything to her right now, it’s all she thinks about.

“I should be back home in Australia around October, where I hope to host my second camp.

“Trek Momentum is a progression camp. I ran the first one last year, so we’re doing it bigger and better this time, inviting 10 to 12 girls to progress, learn new tricks and skills, and just have fun in a really chilled environment, so I’m really looking forward to that.”