Just three years on from her first World Cup race, Louise Ferguson had an incredible season in 2025, becoming the first female winner of Red Bull Hardline Wales as well as the UK national downhill champion. She also won the reader vote to be crowned as MBUK and BikeRadar's MTB Rider of the Year for 2025, supported by Lezyne. We caught up with Lou to reflect on her groundbreaking year.
“I actually feel like I’m not much of a risk-taker,” says Louise Ferguson. These are unexpected words coming from the first woman to complete a top-to-bottom race run through the treacherous rocks, off the huge drops and over the 90ft jumps of the infamous Red Bull Hardline Wales course.
“It’s really hard for me to turn my brain off, throw care to the wind and be like, ‘Here we go!’,” she explains. “I really struggle to do that, so have to fully grasp all the emotions and accept the consequences before I do it. I think about things quite a lot, and when I do decide to do something, I’m going to commit to it.”
It’s this combination of careful consideration and steely resolve that’s taken Ferguson to the highest level of downhill racing, where she’s rarely outside the World Cup top ten. It’s also seen her battle her way down the Red Bull Hardline Tasmania course – where she became one of the first two women to complete a race run in 2024, despite two big crashes – and become the first female rider to conquer Hardline Wales.
And it all stems from a desire to push herself. “I do love the process of hitting big features and scaring myself,” she says. “Being intimidated and then working through those fears and emotions, and getting it done – it’s the most insane feeling! People are like, ‘Oh, you’re mental. I’d never do that’. But I’ve built myself up to this point. I take measured risks.”
Rider of the Year 2025, supported by Lezyne
Louise Ferguson topped the reader vote to be crowned MBUK and BikeRadar's MTB Rider of the Year for 2025. Supported by Lezyne, Rider of the Year celebrates the achievements of road cyclists and mountain bikers across three categories: Rider of the Year, Newcomer of the Year and the Lifetime Achievement Award. For 2025, our MTB winners were:
- Rider of the Year – Louise Ferguson
- Newcomer of the Year – Daisy Craig
- Lifetime Achievement Award – Steve Peat
Trails over tiles
Growing up in Fort William – the UK home of World Cup downhill racing – bikes inevitably beckoned, and Ferguson had some great trails to ride, thanks to Joe ‘Top Chief’ Barnes and his Dudes of Hazzard crew.
“I owe them quite a lot, because they built a lot of our local tracks,” she explains. “When I got into riding with some friends, we ended up just riding their stuff, which was actually pretty gnarly – super-tight and technical, and steep and slippery. Once I started, I became obsessed. I look back now and a lot of my decisions were just around mountain biking.”
Chief among those was her move to New Zealand in 2020, “because they had good riding”. Ferguson ended up getting stuck there because of COVID-19, but in hindsight, says it was the best thing that could have happened. “The women’s side of things is really developed there… there are so many girls just killing it, and you go there and just get smoked! It’s the perfect place to go to get better.”
Ferguson was welcomed into the Queenstown riding community. Having raced DH, enduro and even 4X in the UK, it didn’t take her long to get between the tape, including at Crankworx Rotorua. Inspired by the example of fellow Fort William local Mikayla Parton, who’d begun racing World Cups in 2019, she started to think about joining her on the international circuit.
“Everyone I rode with hyped me up so much,” she says. “I saved up, and when the restrictions relaxed, I flew back to Europe and did my first privateer season. And I haven’t looked back.” That was in 2022, when Ferguson first travelled to Utah for the pioneering Red Bull Formation women’s freeride camp, then headed home to Fort William for her World Cup debut. She didn’t qualify, but says it was an “amazing experience” and a good learning opportunity.
At the next round, in Leogang, Austria, she not only made it into the finals, but finished in fourth place – her best World Cup performance to date. This helped gain her a place on the Continental Nukeproof Factory Racing team for 2023, alongside Italy’s Veronika Widmann and Ireland’s Rónán Dunne and Chris Cumming.
“Nukeproof were really supportive that first year when I was a privateer, but it wasn’t my intention to become a professional,” she explains. “I just loved riding and wanted to go and race and push myself. I went back to New Zealand at the end of the season, and I [got a job] tiling. I just thought I was going to keep saving up money and then go over to Europe and race each season.”
Instead, Ferguson became a fully fledged pro rider, first with Nukeproof and then, since 2024, with Intense Factory Racing. Does she miss the tiling? “I actually quite like tiling – it’s not a bad job!” she says. “But racing gives me so much travelling, and I get to meet some incredible people, and I feel like I make more of a difference riding than I do tiling!”
Hardline hopes
Ferguson has definitely made a difference this year, by showing that women riders can tick off every single feature on the brutal Hardline Wales course. She first rode sections of the track in 2023, at the Red Bull Hardline Progression Camp, where she was the first female rider to hit the On-Off feature, and was eyeing up the 90ft jumps and road gap, until high winds made it too dangerous.
“My first invite was a last-minute call-up,” she reveals. “[Canadian freerider] Casey Brown got injured and couldn’t make it, and Tahnée [Seagrave, UK downhill star] was calling around a bunch of the girls to see who wanted to give it a go. I was like, ‘I don’t feel ready’, and she was like, ‘Nah, just come, it’s going to be great’. I got my eyes opened, had so much fun and ended up getting Rider of the Week, but the event got cancelled.”
She’d hoped to return in 2024, but Intense had to prioritise World Cup points and couldn’t risk her getting injured. Ferguson admits to being “devastated” she couldn’t take part, but “super-proud” of the women who sent the road gap for the first time. This year, with new team signings Mille Johnset and Juanfer Vélez helping to rack up the UCI points, alongside established faces Joe Breeden and Oscar Griffiths, she persuaded the management to let her take part. They said, ‘Okay, you can go’ – and it did pay off! [Now] they’re like, ‘I think we need to support you coming to Hardline...’”
Just what is it that she enjoys so much about the event? “I just love pushing myself. The Athertons have built something insane – the features we’re riding and the progression of the sport that’s happened because of Hardline is incredible. And they’re only going to keep pushing it, which is terrifying but also really cool. That’s why I’m really excited to be part of it – because I know it’s always going to push me to keep getting better.”
In 2023, the road gap was Ferguson's bête noire. “If you stand on the edge of it, you’re [effectively] on the top of a two- or three-storey building. You psych yourself out a little bit. That first season, I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking about that gap so much. I wanted to do it and felt like it was possible, but the intimidation of it – you can’t turn around, there’s no B-line – got to me.”
Ferguson explains that, while hugely imposing, the road gap is actually one of the less technical features on the track, so a good one to tick off early. “All the men were telling me to start on the road gap. I was like, ‘You must be mental – there’s no way this is the easiest feature!’ Because it’s blind and there’s no ride-around. In fact, there’s not even a way to get down – you have to get off your bike, put it on your shoulder and climb down these boulders.”
This year, she summoned up the nerve and sent it. “It seems like you have to turn your brain off, ride in with a bit of commitment and the chances are it’ll work out,” she explains. “I’m not going to lie – it didn’t get easier throughout the week, it was still intimidating. But I kept telling myself I’d done it before and if I just did the same thing again, the result was going to be the same.”
The cliff drop actually turned out to be scarier. “As you run in, there’s no reference for if you’re going too fast or too slow, but the consequence of it is really high," says Ferguson. "If you come up short, it’s not good, and the run-out is a really steep chute, so you don’t want to go long. Before my race run, I had to say, ‘It’s just a drop, it’s chill’ – trying to tell myself it’s small, just to help with the self-belief.”
Meanwhile, the technical sections between the big features gave no opportunity to relax, either. “It’s so slippery on those rocks – I have no idea what they’re made of, but I don’t like it!” she says. “Coming from Scotland, the rocks are actually grippier in the wet, but [not in] Wales… I love downhill racing and I love the tech, but that track in the wet is gnarly. I did a lot of practice in the dry, and then when it came to actually putting a full run together, I had to do it in the rain and I was pretty scared.”
Centre of attention
So, how does it feel to have conquered the track? “It’s a big task and it feels incredible to finally get there and do it. The other women and I… it’s been a bit of a battle. We’ve had a couple of injuries and had to deal with a lot of bad weather. So, it feels extra special to put it all together in Wales, where the track is so technical.”
At one point, it looked like Ferguson wouldn’t be allowed to race, after the weather caused seeding to be brought forward, not leaving enough time for any of the women to do the required top-to-bottom run in practice. Thankfully, Seagrave lobbied Red Bull on her behalf. “The toughest thing was not being in control of whether I could do a full run,” says Ferguson. “I just did everything I could, and it worked out.”
Since her win, public attention has skyrocketed. “It’s a huge compliment, but a bit much for me. I’m really grateful for it, because I’ve realised how much everyone cares about pushing women’s sports forwards. My phone has been going crazy – there’s so many women and young girls who’ve messaged me and said the nicest things, and it just shows how many people are watching and how much potential we all have.”
She adds: “I’m super-lucky to be the one who managed to do it, but it’s not just me – it was Tahnée persevering with Red Bull and making sure we had the space to do it, and then all the other women. I was so nervous for that cliff drop, and then Cami [Nogueira, Argentine freerider] opened it up and I saw, ‘Yeah, we can do this’.
“The men at Hardline are keen to bring us with them, but the other girls are the same size as me, so I know if they’ve got the speed, I can too, and they’ve gone through every challenge I’ve been through.”
The support from the other female riders does add its own pressure, though. “When I was at the top, I had the other women on my mind, and all the build-up, and all the nice messages I got the night before. I just started thinking about how much it meant to everyone else. You just want to be thinking about your ride and not about everything else going on, so that was a big challenge for me – just switching off all the noise and focusing on getting down… I started off very tense, and managed to stop and refocus.”
Earning her stripes
Of course, Hardline hasn’t been Ferguson's only big win this year. She also claimed the national champion’s red-and-white stripes in Fort William. “Because I moved to New Zealand, I haven’t done a lot of British Champs,” she says. “Last year, I qualified first, got a little bit excited and had a ‘hugey’ [crash] in my race run. It hadn’t been a goal of mine before that, but I thought, ‘I’d love to represent [my country]’.”
“I can’t explain my [2025] race,” she admits. “I just heard everyone shouting my name down the track, and when I crossed the finish, I had no idea if it was enough to be national champ, but I enjoyed it. I was really happy to see the time. It’s not been a kind track to me, so I didn’t have a lot of expectation to do well.
“To win in front of a home crowd felt really good – I actually used to work at Nevis Range. I’m lucky that I’ve got such good competition. Phoebe [Gale, who came second] has been on fire recently, and for Mikayla [Parton, third] it was her home track too – we grew up together and went to school in Lochaber so it’s pretty sick to go through all of this with her.”
Beyond hard work and consistent progression, there’s another factor that may have contributed to Ferguson's success this year – her new teammate. “I love riding with Mille,” she says. “It’s made the biggest difference, having another female to go racing with. It’s nice to have the same kind of experiences and just vibe off each other in practice. We’re very different riders, so I think it’s really beneficial. She’s fearless, whereas I feel like I’m trying to be in control too much.”
And of course, the unassuming Scot has now scooped the coveted Rider of the Year award, winning the reader vote by a landslide! “I’m truly honoured,” she told us. “I want to say thanks to my team, who are such an amazing group of people and have given me the best year possible, and also, to Hardline. I’m really excited with where we’re going to go next year and the future for women in mountain biking!”
Back into the breach
So, what’s next for Louise Ferguson? A return to Hardline Wales is definitely on the cards. “This is the beginning. I went to Hardline in 2023 and I’d never seen anything that big before. I was like, ‘Okay, I do want to do this, I want to push myself’. It’s been a couple of years in the making, and now that I’ve completed a run, I want to race it.
“And I want the other women to be up at the top with me. In Tasmania, we were all ticking off features, and because of the weather and the schedule changes, it didn’t completely happen. But now I’ve done a run, it’s hopefully going to be a real stepping stone. Tahnée and Gracey [Hemstreet] are in the overall for the World Cup and it’s hard to do something that might hinder that, but in a selfish way, I really hope we can make it work.”
For Ferguson, it’s going to be interesting tackling Hardline knowing she’s already conquered it once. “This year was [about] completing the track and hopefully next year it’ll be about getting some good times,” she says. “First hits are [always] pretty nerve-wracking, but I’m trying to tell myself it’s going to be easier and more manageable mentally to get through everything… But I’ve heard a rumour that they’re changing the whole track, so it might be another challenge.”
She’s looking forward to another race season, too. “After doing 90-footers in a full race run in the wet, everything at World Cups is going to be pretty chill! There are so many amazing women and it’s really tough to qualify, but I feel very much in my element. The hard bit is that I can feel like I’ve had a perfect run and the time doesn’t reflect that [because I’m] nowhere near the edge – that’s where you have to be for World Cups.”
Overall, Ferguson just hopes to continue pushing herself – and to support and encourage others to do the same. “Racing’s given me so much confidence in myself,” she says. “It’s given me some tough times as well, but that’s just part of it… I want our sport to get better. Just [through] riding, I hope it encourages more women to get involved.
"Us racing at Hardline doesn’t mean loads of women need to come and [do the same], but I hope it encourages them to ride and push themselves. It’s such a good feeling, overcoming your fears. You just feel so accomplished and your self-belief grows so much when you really challenge your riding.”
