Interview: Christopher Blevins on Winning the First XC World Cup of the Year, The Olympic Qualifying Process & More – Pinkbike

I chatted with Christopher Blevins right after he got back from his whirlwind of a trip to Brazil where he won the first Olympic cross-country race of the season. The 26-year-old American former Short Track World Champion last won a World Cup XCO back in 2021 in Snowshoe, but he came out with all cylinders firing in Brazil with the goal of qualifying for the Paris Olympics and getting as many points for the United States to secure two spots for the men’s team.

From getting stung by the most poisonous caterpillar in the world, to recovering on downhills, dealing with cramps, life on Specialized Factory Racing, to what he thought of the cross-country race courses in Brazil, this was a really interesting conversation. We also got into why he switched to mountain biking from BMX, his creative pursuits outside of cycling, and being a mountain biker right now in the US.

The podcast is above if you’d like to listen to the conversation. Alternatively, a transcript which has been slightly edited for clarity is below.

Sarah: It’s not often we get to talk to a World Cup winner right after they come back from from winning the race. What’s the feeling been like since you you came back from Brazil?

Christopher: I’m in Cedar City, Utah, which is completely different than Brazil. I kind of love this change in scenery, it’s like the whole Brazil trip sort of feels like a dream. Yeah, that’s just how it goes. It’s almost like it didn’t happen. But at the same time, it did. And I’ve definitely been processing it and just appreciating it. But yeah, in a lot of ways, you just go to the next thing, to the next moment. So yeah, a lot different here, but that’s good.

Sarah: What are you doing in Utah? Because home for you is now California.

Christopher: Yeah, I live in Santa Cruz as of last fall. But I packed up my suitcase before Brazil and I think I’ll go back for a few days before I leave for Europe again, but then I’m on the road for, I don’t know, three, four months. But yeah, I came here for altitude and then we have Pan Am champs in Soldier Hollow in a couple of weeks. I kind of wanted to come to a new place, ride in St. George. The riding has been good here so far.

Sarah: So you’re kind of doing an altitude camp after these first two World Cup rounds?

Christopher: Exactly. Yeah. My girlfriend’s here, she’s training for Unbound. So we’re just going on long rides and doing what we do in Santa Cruz, just not surfing. I only have my mountain bike here, but yeah, I think that the next couple of weeks will just be long rides, kind of rebuilding fitness. And like I said, mix that up with a few days in St. George to ride some proper trails.

Sarah: You say rebuilding fitness. What was your training like coming into these first two World Cup rounds? Were you like going for an absolute peak in order to get as many points for your Olympic qualification and for the nation rankings for the USA? What did that look like for you?

Christopher: I think the first World Cup of every year, the the level of the racing is always super high because everyone had five months of training going into it. But in the Olympic year, things are particularly interesting because you have like the Swiss and the French who are firing because they have like five riders who could go to the Olympics really and only two that will. Maybe there are a few sort of protected athletes who know they don’t have to be on the top of their game in April, but all Americans had to come out firing since we’re trying to get two spots.

As a country, I think we’re well on our way to doing that, but I definitely was really peaking the best I could for these races in Brazil. I had three races, three weekends back to back to back. I was in Arkansas for the US Cups and then Brazil. So yeah, the reason I say rebuilding fitness, because when you get in the race/rest cycle, you do lose a little bit of fitness. So I’m glad I’ve got some time now to rebuild.

Sarah: What does your next kind of three weeks look like after these rounds?

Christopher: Basically just volume, four to five hours, a lot of days like that. Rebuilding a little bit of strength. I was in the gym a couple of days ago and I’m just like absolutely wrecked, can barely walk. I knew that was going to happen, but it’s frustrating. I don’t really do gym during the three weeks of racing. Then I’m just ridiculously sore after it.

But it’s a long year. Obviously, the big goal of the Olympics. We’re going to need to train through a lot of races and kind of refocus. From now until then training comes first. Obviously the World Cups that are during the blocks of training are important, but we’ll kind of need to work through them a bit.

Sarah: Is it official that you’ve made the US Olympic team? Like that seems like a given, but do they tell you, how does that work? Do you get to focus on that goal now? How does that work as an athlete?

Christopher: You know, I wish it was official, but the way that they have the criteria for US Cycling, the Elite riders have to podium twice, two top fives, out of the three World Cups that we have – two in Brazil and then Nové Město. Then the U23s actually, Riley auto-qualified, Riley Amos, by winning two U23 World Cups. So interestingly, he autoed and I didn’t with my win. But we did a lot of work in late last season, early this year to chase points, to put ourselves in a position where we’ll likely qualify two spots. So I’m assuming if we get two spots, I’ll be the guy chosen, but I also have the chance to auto-qualify with a podium in Nové Město.

Sarah: So on the women’s side, Haley and Savilia are both auto-qualified with two podiums now and that’s the same criteria for the men and the women. Everybody from Team USA obviously came out like absolutely on fire for this first two rounds knowing this, it seems. What’s it like to be in that Olympic cycle every four years? You went to the Olympics in Tokyo, you’re gunning for Paris, obviously. And then, I mean, LA 2028, I guess. What’s it like to, every four years, have this big goal?

Christopher: I mean, it definitely refines everything, like simplifies it. When the Olympics were in 2021, I just graduated school. It was kind of a realization that I had nothing else in my life besides trying to be as best as I could that season for the Olympics. Of course we’ve got big goals every year with the World Cups and World Championships. But when it’s the Olympics, everything else kind of gets sidetracked in a way.

Of course there’s stress and pressure that comes with that, but it’s also an opportunity, I think, to just simplify things. You have a reason to simplify your life, for these three months from now until the Olympics. It’s pretty damn cool that mountain biking is in the Olympics and it’s something that we can think about every four years. Or obviously three years for me from Tokyo till now, but yeah.

I haven’t thought much about LA, but I’ll be 30 and I’m sure I’ll be wanting to go again. We’ll focus on Paris first.

Sarah: Everything seems a little bit kind of different in Olympic years. Do you feel that on your side as well?

Yeah, for sure. You can kind of feel it at the venue, in the teams and the conversations you have with people, they’re like, what do you have to do to get there? It does change things. The teams, we obviously are expected to go to every World Cup, but like I said, a lot of us are thinking about how to be our best in July and some athletes, obviously those on the road, you know, are doing other things, but like Pauline, uh, for instance, skips these world cups to focus on best prep. So yeah, you see things like that happen in an Olympic year, but for sure, it’s in the back of everyone’s mind.

Sarah: It’s kind of different for different countries, right? What was the dynamic with the Specialized Factory Racing team like? Victor Koretzky’s got a tight race for France, while I guess Martin obviously wants to do well, but he’s kind of the top rider for Chile. I didn’t realize that it sounds like different countries have very different criteria. It sounds like the US is prioritizing the next generation almost with their criteria.

Christopher: I mean, in my opinion, you know, the Olympics isn’t really a development race and this is the best the US mountain biking has been in decades really. So it’s super exciting. To be able to go with Riley, we grew up in Durango together, would be amazing. So fingers crossed we can get to that point.

There’s just such a deep women’s field. Haley worked really hard for it and she obviously, you know, nailed her assignment. I was super happy to see that. Sina Frei as well, silver medalist in the Olympics and with the Swiss women it is another super tight race. And then Victor actually, I’m pretty sure he secured it with Les Gets last year. So he and Martin didn’t have to worry about it. You would think that they wouldn’t have to be peaking in April, but they were obviously plenty good.

Sarah: Let’s talk a little bit more about those races. You started off with a really bad Short Track on Saturday, you weren’t even in the top 24 and you didn’t even make the top grid position in the cross country. What happened with that Short Track in Mairiporã and how did you reset for the next day?

Christopher: I’m trying to kind of figure that out myself, but I think it just shows the difference between first and 40 is sometimes so small. It’s just like half a percent. When you’re racing the best in the world, a bad day or a medium day can look really bad. I just didn’t have great legs on Short Track. Maybe it’s what I needed to just shake it out of my system. I was really concerned, because the day before I got stung by the most poisonous caterpillar in the world.

It’s this thing called Lonomia obliqua. It fell on my shirt when it was on a banister under a tree. And this caterpillar fell on my shirt and I didn’t notice and put it on and it pricked me on my chest. I flicked it and it like stuck to my finger. Then I took a picture just like, “Oh, what is this thing?”. Look it up and it’s this super rare like poisonous caterpillar.

I think Brazilian people have had their encounters with it, like it’s not as serious as it sounds on Google, but anyway, it’s just kind of a funny sidebar. I was pretty stressed. I called my sister who’s in med school. She actually is good friends with Stephen Ettinger, former US pro and he’s an emergency meds doc. And so he was looking it up and was like, all right, well, if you have any bleeding in your gums, or fever, headache, you need to go to the hospital and get this anti-toxin.

So anyways, none of that happened, but I was worried that my Short Track was so bad because of this silly caterpillar. Turns out it probably wasn’t. I finished that obviously far from where I wanted to be, and you have that whole little layer of doubt, like, man, what did I get wrong? Is this just where I’m at? Is there nothing I can do? But you’ve got to kind of push that aside. I’ve been in that situation before in my career, where, you know, your back is sort of against the wall and the only thing to do is you just step your best foot forward. I just got ready for that race like I would have if I’d had a great short track. I think I had the pressure off my shoulders of not fighting anyone else. I just wanted to ride my best race possible.

That turned out to be kind of perfect for me with the way I paced it, the way I rode through groups to get to the lead group. I think it was a lesson that a lot of times XCO racing is a time trial with people in the way, you’ve got to sometimes just ride your race. I can’t think of anything I did wrong in that race, which is rare.

It just all kind of came together. I never would have thought it happened after 37th in Short Track the day before.

Sarah: Was it different having the Short Track on the Friday? Since it used to be on the Friday night. What did that look like from your standpoint and the other athletes around you?

Christopher: I didn’t really hear people talk about it. I sort of expected people to complain about it a bit more, that it’d be more of a talking point, but it’s obviously all the same for everyone. I actually prefer it. I think it’s a great opener, you’re plenty open after 20 minutes all out.

But sometimes when it was on Friday and we’d have the Saturday in between, I felt like my body would kind of shut down a bit. Then you’d have to kind of keep it motivated, keep it going for Sunday. But as long as you can sleep well, with the Short Track in the morning, there’s plenty of time to have caffeine and then chill. When it was in the evening on Friday, none of us would sleep well that night.

I think it’s better. I think it’s better for spectators, which is great because Short Track is such a good spectator-friendly, you know, discipline.

Sarah: The next short track, you came second, so obviously something clicked there. Do you think that was kind of the course or your legs or how much is it mental?

Christopher: I mean, it’s a bit of both. It’s a hard question because it really depends on the weekend. Sometimes you’re good and you don’t know why. Sometimes you’re bad and you don’t know why.

But as far as that Short Track, it was a great course for me. Obviously it had kind of the BMX rhythm section in it, but it had plenty of time to recover and plenty of time to kind of move through the pack and be aggressive. It was crazy because you have these wide open straightaways through the start finish that would narrow into like a grass strip with a bunch of trees in the middle of it. So there were crashes. I’m surprised there weren’t more, but it just shows like, we’re all pretty good at riding in a pack on a mountain bike next to each other. I got caught behind some stuff and I think I was, you know, in 17th or something on one lap, maybe further back. And then just worked my way up kind of at the perfect time when Victor hit it into the bottom of the climb.

Then I went around him off of the climb before the jumps. And he came back to me at that point. We had enough of a gap where I knew if I could just hit it and let him stay on my wheel, that we would go one-two. So it was a bit of team tactics and yeah, it was pretty cool. I come from a bit of a road background along with the BMX and it kind of all happened there – I was trying to bump jump this table every lap and then I was like leading a teammate out at the end. So it was honestly a dream format and course for me.

Sarah: In Mairiporã, you were like 30 seconds back on the first couple of laps, and then you kind of built your way back up into the race. And then at that point, it kind of seemed like it became more of a tactical race. Are you kind of drawing on like what you’ve learned from racing road, what you’ve learned from BMX or is it kind of instinctual? What’s going through your mind and when you’re in that like group of four or five people who like anybody can win really?

Christopher: I don’t really care how long it takes us to get to the finish line. I just want to get there first. So I’m rarely the one to just hit it at the front and drag people around. Sometimes you can use that to your advantage and if there aren’t wide open straightaways and there’s tricky singletrack, you can just slowly edge the gap open or tire people out. But on a course like that, yeah, it was tactical, not in the way where you had to time your moves, but you had to not let other people swarm you. For me, I kind of tend to trust my kick at the end. I just wanted to go into that last lap fresh enough to be able to give it everything for that one move on top of the climb. And yeah, it just worked out like that.

It was really interesting. The front of the race, they had like one lap that was, I don’t know, 11 minutes and then the next lap was like 12:15. So they were doing super different lap times while I was just kind of steady, consistent in the back moving my way up. So it was an interesting XCO race. I don’t think you see many where there’s that much of a difference in lap times. Like the lead group, was the first fastest lap time on, I don’t know, lap two. And then on the fourth lap, they were like the 50th fastest. It was kind of strange. But yeah, I mean, the more tactical the mountain bike race, the more I like it, that’s for sure.

Sarah: Is this something you’re analyzing after the race, the time breakdowns per lap that the UCI publishes?

Christopher: I mean, it’s interesting to look at, you know, because you had a race analysis or whatever they call it. You can see everybody’s lap time and place for that lap time. I don’t know if other people do like deep dives into that and kind of compare them course to course, but I would bet that the Mairiporã one was super unique. You probably don’t have, like I said, the differences in lap times that you saw in the lead group. And then, me moving up from the back, I got a bit lucky, even though I was running in the start loop, like just totally caught in the back.

Sarah: It didn’t look like the easiest start loop to make your way through from the back. There was that really steep climb and everybody even, I think after like the top 10, they were starting to run. How does that play into your mind when you’re like, “I had a bad short track? I’m starting further back in the grid and there’s going to be a bottleneck here probably”.

Christopher: I mean, you kind of just have to accept it and then not think about it, you know, like stay present and lap by lap, just do the best race you possibly can. I wasn’t really thinking about what place I was in, like honestly, until I was like, “oh my God, I’m in sixth and the lead group’s right there.” So I think that’s a lesson that you can’t really let all of the stuff around you externally get in the way of your internal process. That’s what matters at the end of the day and that’s what’s going to lead you to a good race.

Sarah: What does like the feedback and support look like for you on the course?

Christopher: Well, it’s become more involved in the past couple of years since Discovery took over. They have sort of this F1 style pit, which has mixed reviews, us having to go through a different line to grab bottles.

It was obviously a hot race. We have a big team, which is nice for race days, because we can have a lot of support throughout. So Benno, the team manager, he’s just kind of a cheerer and wrangler throughout it. But he told me through the start loop, like, “come on, Chris, you could do better.” And he was right.

In the feed zone, we grab ice socks pretty much every lap and put those down the jersey. It’s nice for sure. And then you get the dump bottles and you do one big splash down the back and then splash your legs. So you do that and then you grab hydration.

It was actually interesting because so many people were doing that, that the grass corner on the super hot dusty course got wet and almost muddy. And there were some people going down on that corner, inside the feed zone. Then there was another feed zone. When it’s hot enough, they allow feeding, so my coach was up there with dump bottles and hydration as well.

I think I take like three gels in a race and then, I cramp more often than most people so I take Hotshots, which is basically this spicy shot. You could probably put it on like a burrito and it wouldn’t be too bad. It’s meant for anti-cramping. My dad just started using them like 10 years ago.

Sarah: You take it in hot races? Or when the race is longer?

Christopher: I take it almost every race, and that’s just because I cramp so often. That’s just sort of how I show fatigue. Cramps are hard to figure out, but I think that the Hotshots do help. And it could just be mental. But if it is, it still works.

Sarah: The courses were pretty different. Like both brand new venues. What did you think of them? Obviously you like the BMX track there. The Araxa one was a bit shorter than usual. Was that a record number of lap times that you guys had to do on that one?

Christopher: Yeah, probably actually. We totally could have ended up doing 10 laps. I think they just didn’t want us to do 10 because that sounds kind of crazy for an XCO. And then the Short Track was a long course. Actually, we only did five.

But they were great. It was definitely different than the European World Cups, more manmade stuff. I loved how fast Mairiporã was. I’m a fan of having a range of courses throughout the World Cup circuit. I think we should have some courses that are really like pack racing and tactical. I think that’d be fun for people to watch. And then we should have the Mont-Sainte-Anne and Val di Soles that are super technical and natural. And Araxa was, I think it’s maybe Brazil’s most famous venue from what I heard. And you can tell based on the amount of work the course builders did on those jumps and rock gardens and stuff. I had a lot of fun. I think most riders did.

A lot of people were wondering if that’s what modern XCO is, more jumps and kind of built features. And like I said, I think there’s a place for that, but what’s cool in our sport is there’s no rules of what a course has to look like. So we should make them different every time.

Sarah: What about if we’re looking at your bike setup from one course to another. What does it look like for you from one round to the next? What are you changing on your bike?

Christopher: Yeah good question, because it was really interesting in Brazil. there was much more difference in the bike setup than most World Cups. I raced the Epic World Cup at the first round and then Epic 8 at the second. And there’s kind of a lot of contradictions between them. In Mairiporã, I rode the Epic World Cup, that’s the 75 mm rear travel bike, so it’s supposed to be a little bit more hardtail-y and less capable than the Epic 8, and that course was a lot of steep climbs and not too technical features so you didn’t really need to have the extra suspension to recover on the descents. But that said, I had a 35mm stanchion fork on instead of the 32mm so that felt great. It was a little different. And I had the Flight Attendant just on the fork. And then the Epic World Cup shock is its own technology. I set that up pretty firm and it felt really good. And then I had a high post, no dropper. The way I descend at those races sometimes is just like legs locked out to recover. So I didn’t really need a dropper and it saves a lot of weight.

And then I had 2.5″ super low profile fast tires, super wide, but really fast. So again, that’s kind of a contradiction. Then at Araxa, I ran those tires, ran a dropper, and then the Epic 8 with Flight Attendant. So yeah, for anybody who is into those details, I think the Epic World Cup was probably the lightest bike out there, mostly because I was on a high post. I think it was under 22 lbs, it was like 21 lbs or something for a size large. The other was a bit heavier because of the dropper, but not much, definitely 22 lbs or something.

Sarah: Tell me about descending with straight legs to recover. How does that work? Because I’ve definitely noticed moving out to BC, like, some of these, like, longer cross-country races that I’ve done. It’s like, you go downhill, you have a great time, and then you start going uphill, and, like, the cramps would set in for me. So what’s your technique here? You descend actually straight legged? Like how does that work?

Christopher: Yeah, it doesn’t look very dynamic, your legs are locked out. I keep them locked for as long as I can. And then, you know, obviously when you hit a feature, you have to like, you know, spring into action mode a bit more, but it’s so different than when I descend for fun and I’m like super low moving all over the bike. That’s kind of my style, but in races I’m just like static and try to keep the arms and the whole body really just like as limp as I can. It’s just like 15 seconds and I think that the best descenders don’t necessarily go faster, but they recover better in XCO races. So that’s really the name of the game.

Sarah: I feel like we’ve always said you can’t win a cross country race on the downhills, but you can lose it. Who are some of the better descenders? Can you win some of these races if you’re not as strong on the descents?

Christopher: Yeah, I mean, it depends on the race. It depends on the dynamic. If you’re just going against one other person, for sure you can pry open a gap on the descents and keep it there. But if it’s in a group, maybe like getting two seconds doesn’t matter because the group catches up. But I mean, everybody’s super fast. I honestly think the best descender is Martín Vidaurre Kossmann, my teammate. He’s just crazy, through and through, he’s just literally insane. So he’ll attack the descents and just like lay it all out there. Sometimes he probably doesn’t recover as much, but maybe he gets two seconds, which if you do that again and again, and you’re just kind of like relentless with it, then I mean, even if it’s just mental, you can crack the other people a bit.

It’s rare that you’re going to open one solid gap on a descent that decides the race, but it’s like those microseconds throughout. Then maybe you put pressure on people when you make them make a mistake.

Sarah: I feel like we don’t see that many XC crashes usually. Do you think racers kind of try not to push it too much in the downhill?

Christopher: The times when people crash, I think it’s because they’re just so over the limit and have lactate up to their ears. I have races where my hands will cramp and it’s just because it’s like my whole body’s just exhausted and that’s when your vision goes sideways and you’re in that tunnel vision mode and that’s when you make a mistake and crash. That’s where you really have to know your limit and ride at that edge, but never fully over where you blow up. I think we’re on the limit so often and we run these super low profile tires that aren’t fun to descend on, you know, that doesn’t feel good, but it’s fast on the climbs.

You kind of have to wait, like use that risk to your advantage and make those decisions. But the bikes are getting so good where descending is like, we can do these hard features and we’re fine with them as long as we’re not cross-eyed. It’s just about, yeah, like I said, it’s about recovery. It’s about smoothness and efficiency.

Sarah: How long did you race BMX for before moving on to mountain bikes?

Christopher: 12 years, from like 4 to 16 and I was super serious from age 6.

Sarah: Wow. So you’ve been racing bikes seriously since you were six years old. What was it like about BMX racing that you liked and got you into that competitive environment?

Christopher: It’s such a good sport for kids because, it’s kind of like a traveling circus at every national and the local tracks too where the dads and moms like put the kids in the gate and then off they go and then they catch them at the finish line. It was like that for my first few years. And BMX can be super competitive. I was definitely on the side of it. I was National Age Group one pretty much every year, I think for like eight out of 10 years. My dad pushed me, which I’m thankful for, but it was definitely competitive and I definitely learned some focus at a young age and then obviously the work ethic.

I kind of was able to balance that with mountain biking with Durango Devo, kind of free, just go out and explore and don’t care about getting fast. But BMX was serious for me when I was seven. I was probably as serious as I am now.

Then it slowly kind of transitioned to the more endurance stuff, road and mountain. Every year I just did more and more of that. But BMX is, I mean, people know this and this is proven true, it gives you such good bike awareness and pack skills because you’re making decisions like going into a berm with eight people all around you. And then the snappiness, it kind of gave me that sprint. And it’s just fun, it’s just helped me know how to ride a bike and have fun.

Sarah: I guess like on the other side of that is the road racing. We see some of these top road racers come into mountain biking and we see some of the top mountain bikers leave mountain biking to go to road racing. What do you see being the appeals of road racing, the appeals of mountain biking and kind of having felt that push and pull between the two disciplines yourself?

Christopher: When I was 20 and I was on a Pro Conti road team, kind of figuring out the mountain bike stuff for myself, I had for the first couple years support from Specialized, but I wasn’t on the factory team and I was kind of more of a domestic rider. I chose mountain biking and it wasn’t because of the money, that’s for sure. If I went to the World Tour, which I was kind of on a trajectory for, I definitely would have made more money. And I think that makes a lot of sense for people and it’s sort of a proven reliable. I mean, it’s really hard to get to the World Tour, obviously, but if you do, there’s like a framework. You can make it a career. The mountain bike world is more ambiguous. You have to find the right team and sometimes you’re privateering.

But for me, there were kind of two sides of the decision. One was the Olympics, I knew I wanted to do everything to go to Tokyo and that kind of meant in that year leading up to it focusing on the mountain bike. And then two, it’s just like who I am and it’s just where I have more fun. Road racing is fun, sometimes. It’s really not fun when you crash. That kind of dissuaded me from it. But I think the mountain bike culture and you know, just the community and the sport is really what I love about it compared to road. I’m lucky that I’ve been able to race a bunch of different disciplines and it’s helped me a ton, but there’s a reason why I’ve stuck with the mountain biking world.

Sarah: BMX is also an Olympic sport. Was that like something that you were attracted to as well? Why did you switch from the BMX to just to mountain biking?

Christopher: Yeah, well, crashes too. I had a lot of coaches and friends who had internal organ bleeds from crashes and just crazy stuff. They’re all okay, but BMX, the career span is quite short. You don’t see many late 20s BMXers who are still going at it. If they are, they’ve had a lot of crashes and gnarly injuries. My dad was an orthopedic surgeon, he’s retired now, but out of all of the BMX races for those 12 years, every one of them, Dr. Blevins would get a call to come to the finish line and look at someone.

And then growing up in Durango, mountain biking, that’s kind of just the thing the kids do. So it was natural for me to slot into that. And then I got on Specialized and it just kind of made sense to follow it. Honestly, I think Durango had the biggest impact on that as to why I chose mountain biking, but those other factors also.

Sarah: Yeah, and I bet your dad was happy to go and watch you race and not have to do an emergency room operation at the end of the race. Did you have some injuries that scared you from BMX racing or did you just gradually move towards mountain biking?

Christopher: I mean, I wasn’t really scared of the injuries when I was a kid, but I had pretty serious ones. The biggest was a fractured skull, which went through my inner ear. So I’m actually permanently deaf in my left ear from that. So that was another one when I was 10. And then at different times, I broke both wrists and both elbows.

Sarah: So you’re deaf in one ear, does that play into your racing at all now, do you think? Or you’re kind of just adapted for it if it was over a decade ago, I guess.

Christopher: Yeah, I’ve definitely adapted to it, but I have to ride on the left side of people or else I’m just impossible to have a conversation with. There were times in road races where a teammate would be trying to get me a bottle and I’d be on the right side of the road, my left ear towards them, and I just couldn’t hear him at all. And everyone’s looking at me and I’m like, “what’s going on?” And then I realize, or the race radio was really difficult on the road, because if I put that in, then I couldn’t hear anything else.

But thankfully, you know, with inner ear fractures, it can mess up your balance. I didn’t have any of that, or maybe I was just so young that I learned to adjust. But yeah, it’s little things, and if you get to know me longer than, you know, a week or so, it’ll come up because I’ll have to say “what” a lot and I’ll tell you I’m deaf.

Sarah: Interesting. Because your other passion is music, poetry, and so it’s kind of an interesting combination that you can’t hear out of that one ear, but those are your other pastimes.

Christopher: Yeah and I actually do use two earbuds. It just sounds better and I think it’s because it travels, the vibrations travel through my skull to my other ear. That’s what people have told me.

Chapters is a creative project by Christopher Blevins and Stilspoke, with support from Specialized, following his life as a World Cup XC racer through the 2024 Olympic year. With one segment covering each month, and a mix of creative mediums, the first video of the series shows Christopher’s off-season, and his search to find the still point in the midst of the craziness of World Cup racing. Read the whole story.

Sarah: We really liked the first episode of your “Chapters” that you did with your production company, Stilspoke. We were laughing after the race that the World Cup winner submitted some content to Pinkbike. We were like, we’re definitely Christopher Blevins fans. You submitted the content, we posted on the homepage and then you go and win the World Cup. That was pretty cool. But what was the impetus to start a production company and pursue these other interests outside of riding and racing your bike?

Christopher: Thanks for sharing it, by the way. It was fun to put it together. And I guess good timing. I was like, I have to come out with this video about the off-season before the World Cup. Otherwise, it’s just irrelevant. I’ve just always been interested in other things. I went to school for business and sociology and did some creative writing, taught some creative writing to kids there and took some poetry classes. And maybe it’s, you know, I started riding my bike so early, as we said, and it kind of has always been a constant for me, so the other pursuits were other ways to just get to know myself.

And music and poetry, especially the style that I like, which is really just kind of introspective, more of a exploration with the lyrics, it’s been a good outlet for me and there’s been ways that I’ve found I can tie it into cycling and be a little creative. Whether it’s a video series where I’ve got poems throughout or Red Bull had me rap a season recap in 2021, which was pretty wild.

It’s just a fun other outlet. And then, like I said, I think that what we do as athletes, sometimes it’s more creative than we think it is. We think that sports are just this physical thing you do, but you actually have kind of that artistic view that you can apply to sport. And it’s been fun for me to find ways to bring it together. Stilspoke, the creative studio production company, is just kind of my platform for that and bringing in friends and we really just want to share stories that are kind of showing more of the human side of what we do and the creative side. Obviously there’s tons of different characters and different ways to ride bikes. It’s just a fun way for us to explore that. And the video series, I think I’ve got another episode coming in a couple of weeks.

Sarah: I guess you spend a lot of time on your bike, out on your own, so is it kind of during those times that you’re thinking of these creative things that you can kind of then bring into your music or your production company kind of later? Like how does the writing and the lyrics tie together?

Christopher: I think it’s a common experience for those four-hour solo rides or whatever it is where you start getting creative. I’ve definitely thought of my grand ideas, some that weren’t as good afterwards. I thought they were better while I was riding. And then I’ve definitely written lyrics on the bike and stuff like that. But yeah, I think that training 20 hours a week solo, it’s kind of a conducive lifestyle to being more introspective and creative. You have space, you have some moments of silence and just getting to know yourself through the sport. I really appreciate that. I do think it kind of feeds the creativity a bit.

Sarah: What do you think, being a cross-country athlete, what are the main differences between like, if we look at cross-country, road and downhill… like between somebody who really likes road racing, somebody who really likes mountain biking, and somebody who really likes downhill racing. What do you think the kind of main differences between those people who thrive in those different environments are?

Christopher: It seems I think a lot of people see XCO racers as just guys who wear Lycra and just dismiss it because of that. It’s just funny how that clothing difference… I’ve seen so many times where it’s like, oh stupid, just spandex. And it’s just like, yo, there’s more to the sport than the clothes we’re wearing. If we want to go fast, we’re going to try to go fast. But I appreciate all different disciplines and cycling and obviously I’ve raced a bunch of them.

I think mountain biking is unique because you have so many different skill sets that you need for it. Especially at the World Cup level, the courses are really demanding and the length is really interesting. You know, an hour and a half is obviously an endurance event by all means, but it’s super intense. You’re not holding really anything back on that first start loop. So it’s, I think, like the hardest length you could have for a race in some ways. And yeah, the communities have their quirks and differences to them. Obviously the road, you know, racing is so European and it’s a world away from downhill culture and just style.

But I am the rider I am and really the person I am because I’ve been in all of these communities for BMX to road to mountain and cyclocross, whatever else. I’m just appreciative of all different kinds of it. But I think sometimes mountain biking, XCO, falls in between disciplines in a way where it sort of gets hidden or buried. It doesn’t really get the coverage of road and then sometimes people who are just more recreational riders, like when I’m in Santa Cruz riding for fun, I never wear spandex and I don’t ride like an XC rider. But I think the gap between that recreational fun side of the sport and mountain biking and XCO racing is bigger than it could be, if that makes sense.

I’d like to see there be more of a connection and it’s so cool seeing what NICA is doing and bring people into racing a bit more. But anyway, I am sort of rambling on that question. But I think all the differences are apparent between the disciplines, but they’re all good.

Sarah: Also touching on the community, something I wanted to talk about was how Team USA, at these first two rounds, hasn’t been historically strong. We hadn’t seen that many riders, U23, men, women on the podium ever. What do you think it comes down to? Is it seeing other racers performing well? How do you think the USA is fighting with Switzerland and France to be a powerhouse in cross-country racing all of a sudden?

Christopher: Yeah, there’s a lot to it. You know, it’s not just one thing. I can say that for myself. I didn’t get here from one thing I did. It was really a combination of all of the different support networks I had. And I kind of was part of a wave of more development in mountain biking and USA Cycling and you know the recipient of like the community in Durango and other coaches and my family. All of those things have to stack up to lead to being able to compete at an international level and you have to have that huge base of ridership of young kids who love their mountain bikes and see a path forward of how they can race it.

NICA has been huge. The development teams in the US, they’re not that many now. Obviously, Bear is pulling a lot of weight and bringing out a lot of fast riders every year. And then USA Cycling is, I think, investing more in mountain biking and getting people over to Europe. But I want to see more races in the US because I think there would be interest there. And just showing the NICA kids who, you know, mountain biking is their favorite sport, but then they go to college and there’s not much of a collegiate cycling structure. And then it’s really just not apparent that they can race, certainly not at an international level. I had to be in Durango with Olympians as my neighbors in order to get there. And that’s a rare experience, but I think that more races in the US, more of us doing well on an international level will hopefully show the kids that you actually can be a bike racer post-NICA.

Sarah: I guess you were you on Specialized when when Kate Courtney was on Specialized. And so you kind of saw her her come through with the World Championships and World Cup wins. And what was that like at the time?

Christopher: Kate, you know, really did put the US on the map in a lot of ways, like again, with mountain biking. She and my sister are best friends from college and I’ve known Kate for years. I do think that she really inspired this. She’s part of this generation, I guess, but, you know, inspired a lot of younger riders to be able to take a stab at the Europeans and go win. The best of her career’s yet to come, I believe. But that first couple years where she won Worlds and then the World Cup overall, I think was showing the Europeans that we can do this in the US mountain bike world.

Sarah: And then Haley Batten was also your teammate on the Trinity Racing Team and then now on Specialized Factory Racing as well. And I guess you were all peers coming up through and seeing that each other could do this together.

Christopher: Yeah, I’ve really like gotten memories and photos from 10 years ago when we were all teammates, when we were 16 on Whole Athlete. Haley and I and Kate as well. I think she would have just started with Specialized at that point, but makes me feel kind of old being like, wow, 10 years ago.

Sarah: And now all the kids are looking up to you and yeah, hopefully watching you at the Olympics at the end of July. What does your season look like between now and then?

Christopher: Pan Am’s in Utah in a couple of weeks and then off to Europe for Nové Město. Then the Olympic selections are made. So, if things go well, I’ll go ride the course in Paris right after that. And then there’s an awkward amount of time where I could come back to the US, but I’d be jet lagged for more time than I’d be home. So I’m going to stay over in Girona probably. And then we’ve got three World Cups in June, which a lot of us will be sort of training through the best we can. And then I’ll stay in Girona again before the Olympics.

Sarah: So you’ll still be doing your strength workouts and you might not be feeling quite as good as you were at these first World Cup races.

Christopher: Yeah, I’ll do my best to get used to it again. But no, it’ll be an interesting season to see kind of who can maintain form, but then who’s really firing at the Olympics.