Becoming legendary: The evolving influence of Micayla Gatto in mountain biking

This past August, the day after Micayla Gatto’s 36th birthday, the freerider, filmmaker and artist was at a boatyard in Squamish. She was there to fix up the family’s sailboat. Her goal is not only to get the craft seaworthy, but to use it to travel to new riding destinations—another chapter in the varied career of the rider-Renaissance woman.

In the 2000s, Gatto competed in downhill, earning national championship titles. After a bad crash in 2014, she stepped away from racing. In 2017, her video with IFHT, “Ferda Girls”—a parody of Kendrick Lamar’s “Humble” that critiqued the sexism and the challenges women face in mountain biking—won Crankworx’s Dirt Diaries. The video remains a landmark in Gatto’s career. Today, Gatto, a  YT Mob member, continues to ride big lines and is an alternate for this fall’s edition of Red Bull Rampage, which will include women riders for the first time.

Another first in 2024 is the FMBA Slopestyle World Championships for women. Can Gatto connect her riding and activism to progress in the sport such as that? She is maybe a bit humble, and mixes her analysis with humour. “I mean, I've had a couple of people name their babies after me,” she says in this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast. “So, I've got to be doing something right. (Or I just have a cool name.)”

Find out more in this wide ranging interview with Gatto that also looks at another one of her pursuits, the art of tattooing, and how it is connected with mountain biking.

Also in this episode is Derek Gee. The rider from Osgoode, Ont., won a stage at this year’s Critérium du Dauphiné, held the leader’s jersey for a stage and finished third overall. Later in the summer, he rode to an impressive ninth at the Tour France. He looks ahead to the Grands Prix Cyclistes de Québec et de Montréal. Editors Matthew Pioro and Matt Hansen look further at the WorldTour races set to run in a little more than a week. Big names are on their way to Canada.