Bayli McSpadden enjoys surprising herself.

Two weeks after hopping on the podium at the Tropical Mountain Bike Challenge in Albergue Olimpico de Salinas, Puerto Rico, the 22-year-old climbed to the top step in the U23 race at the Orange Seal Pro Cup in Temecula, California. McSpadden topped the 15-rider cross-country field, covering the five-lap course in 1 hour, 14 minutes and 2 seconds.

“Things are starting to click,” McSpadden said. “I didn’t feel the greatest but just found it within me to just push as hard as I could considering. I think it was a bit of a surprise, but I was super stoked about it.”

---

---

The Vail native is taking the year off from classes at CU to focus on cycling. After spending November and December at home, McSpadden moved out to California to live and train with her Bear National Team director and a teammate. Compared to the 2024 season, which came in the wake of an untimely October injury, the buildup to 2025 has been a bit better.

“I think I went into last season off the injury with too high of expectations almost. A little bit of imposter syndrome, thinking I needed to be in a different spot than where I was,” McSpadden said. “It was a lot of let downs, a lot of challenging races where it just wasn’t working.”

---

---

While McSpadden said it took a long time to “feel like myself on the bike” after the trimalleolar fracture she suffered in a crash, the struggle served a purpose.

“Each race I was learning something different,” McSpadden said. “I think it brought me into the season with a lot more confidence.”

In addition to “clicking in to race pace again,” McSpadden upped her mental game by working with a sports psychologist this season. It’s helped her navigate races — and life in general. As her peers continue with college or enter the workforce, McSpadden said she sometimes feels stuck.

“It’s a very hard sport to be in. You sacrifice a lot,” she said. “And I think that can sometimes get in your head and be a big block.”

Promising early-season results have helped her realize she belongs. The first race in Puerto Rico, however, didn’t go as planned.

“It was so horrible,” McSpadden said of her sixth-place result in the cross-country on Feb. 19.

“I think I was super nervous, I didn’t know where my mind was,” she admitted. “So that kind of was a wake up call and I was like, ‘what am I doing? I’m over thinking this. All I need to do is turn off my brain and just race with my heart and go.'”

Four days later, she was sixth in the women’s elite short track and third in the U23 cross-country, just two seconds behind her teammate, Makena Kellerman and 24 clicks off the winner, Mexico’s Maria Carolina Flores Garcia.

“I think that was a huge stepping stone for me,” McSpadden said. “It made me realize I can be up there and race to win.”

She opened up the month of March doing exactly that. Despite overcoming an illness just a few days before the race, McSpadden broke away from the disjointed peloton early on, averaging 14:48 for each of the 4.8-kilometer laps. She wound up over two minutes up on fellow Bear National Team rider Emily Stapleton and 3:54 ahead of bronze medalist Maddie Fisher of Donovan Racing.

“I got in a groove and just took it lap by lap,” McSpadden said. While the former SSCV Alpine racer used to stand on ski podiums all the time, to do it on a bike felt different.

“It was a good feeling,” she said. “Haven’t stood on the top step in a while and to feel that again is super motivating.”  

McSpadden is in Fayetteville, Arkansas this weekend for the second stop of the U.S. Pro Cup and UCI XCO Junior Series. She’s hoping to catapult herself into the top-200 in the world rankings, which would make her eligible for the first UCI World Cup race in Nove Mesto in May. If she happens to be home and it makes sense, she’ll hop into a Vail Recreation District town series race or perhaps even the GoPro Mountain Games later this summer. Every pedal stroke is directed toward USA Cycling mountain bike nationals in Roanoke, Virginia, July 14-20. With each session and race, however, the goal is to simply “be present without pressure.”

“Just take it one race and one lap at a time. That’s all I can do,” McSpadden said. “And the rest of the season, I want to keep surprising myself.”