156 – BMX World Champion To MTB – We Chat with Harriet (Haz) Burbidge-Smith
Today’s Guest:
2x World Champion & 8x Australian Champion Harriet (Haz) Burbidge-Smith
On episode #156 we are chatting with Harriet Burbidge-Smith or commonly known by her friends as Haz or Haz Nation. Haz is from Canberra Australia, is an Elite Woman MTB rider and has been racing bikes for over 18 years even though she is still only in her mid twenties.
Like so many of us Haz was brought up racing BMX and has been super successful doing so with 2x World Championships and 8x Australian Championships under her belt. However, after a trip to Whistler a few years ago she got bitten by the downhill bug and has never looked back.
Haz has now poured 100% of her attention into MTB and has her sights set on the Crankworx Series, FMB and the Red Bull Pumptrack Series. She is also super passionate about creating new and progressive freeride and film content for her YouTube channel.
So join us and find out more about Haz’s transition from BMX to MTB, why she loves the mountain bike scene, her passion for trail building and how she found herself in a European hospital with no family or friends!
Enjoy the show!
Find Out:
- How Haz got started in BMX
- What age she started racing
- What the BMX scene is like
- How she found herself riding mountain bikes in Whistler
- How Whistler and good friends sold her on the MTB scene
- When she decided to hang up the BMX and roll out the MTB
- How different a mountain bike is to ride than a BMX
- Why Haz has fallen in love the the MTB scene
- What races she attended to get her mountain bike racing career started
- How she made it through two major crashes
- How Haz spent a month in a European hospital with a huge concussion and internal bleeding
- Why Haz enjoys her trail building job with Iconic Trails so much and how it helps her be a better rider
- Where Haz gets her motivation
- Future plans and how to get in contact
We all have different directions on how we come to be riding and racing mountain bikes, but a good number of us will have come from a BMX background and somehow have ended up on a mountain bike. The journey for Haz has been no different. Haz has raced at the top level of professional BMX for 15 plus years, but after a friend convinced her to come ride mountain bikes in Whistler for a while she found herself quickly falling in love with the MTB scene, people and the challenges it brings.
For a while Haz tried to do both, but finally found herself jumping on the mountain bike more than the BMX and decided to focus 100% of her efforts on mountain biking and completely immerse herself into the scene. She has already shown her speed and bike handling skills at a number of different race events and for only riding a mountain bike for the last couple of years she is already ripping, go check out her Instagram page for the evidence.
Haz unfortunately broke her foot at a Red Bull pumptrack event in Innsbruck and then when travelling to race in the Red Bull Revelations 4x event in Prague (still with a cast on her foot!) she had a nasty crash and ended up in hospital for one month. When it happened Haz couldn’t remember what had happened, how she got off the mountain and how she ended up in the hospital. She had incurred a very bad concussion, a lacerated liver and internal bleeding. On top of that, she was in a hospital 9,000 miles away from home, the nurses didn’t speak english and her phone battery was about to die. Stressful or what?
In the end it was all sorted, Haz got to chat with her family, had a good recovery and was ready to ride bikes again. After all that had happened the thing Haz was most concerned about was getting out on her bike. The accident and injuries had not put her off riding, it had not crushed her motivation, she hadn’t even lost any love for the sport, in fact she was more determined to ride, to make up for lost time and push herself to get better, faster and more skillful on her bike.
To most people that sounds crazy and it is, but one thing I have learned chatting with top level mountain bike racers over the years is that injuries and broken bones only mean one thing…more time off the bike. And that is one thing they can’t handle. They need to be riding, pushing themselves, getting better, improving their skills and they need it on a daily basis. It is a drug that doesn’t come without a price, but it is a price I know we all wish we were addicted to.
So join me as I chat to Haz about her local Australian scene, racing from an early age, the MTB scene Vs. the BMX scene and her future racing, filming and digging plans.
Thanks for tuning in and for being here!
To Connect with Haz:
Website: www.haz.bike
Instagram: haznationbikes
Facebook: Haznation-MTB
YouTube: HazzasWORLDLYD
Haz’s Sponsors:
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Thanks to Haz for coming on the show and sharing her awesome story of BMX to MTB.
And thanks to you for being part of the show!
Join me next week for another MTB TRIBE Podcast show.