World championship medallist Emilly Johnston leaps to the next level with her dream team

Two days before Emilly Johnston won the Argentario instalment of the Internazionali d'Italia Series, she chatted about all the new changes that have occurred in the past seven months. As the 2024 mountain bike world championships began at the end of this past August, Johnston signed with the team she’d race with in 2025, Scott-SRAM MTB Racing, the squad of Nino Schurter and Filippo Colombo. The two-year contract came just as the rider from Vancouver Island’s Comox Valley was nearing the end of her final under-23 season. Her first year in the elite level would truly be with the elites of the sport.

Johnston covers a wide range of topics In this in-depth interview. How had the geography of her home region shaped her as a rider? Why did she do a cool trick in a high-stakes race? Does she tie her own flies for fishing? Johnston talks about some of the people who’ve had a big effect on her career, including an innovative bike builder on Quadra Island. She shares her insights about the current state of Canadian women’s cross country mountain biking and how, in a sense, she has two lives: a European one and a Comox Valley one.

Also in this episode of the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast, editor Matthew Pioro and writer Jake Williams chat about recent races. Milan-San Remo, men’s and women’s, were stunning events. XC racers had many successes in the UC Cup races in Fayetteville, Ark. Gent-Wevelgem is coming up. It’s a race that Williams, a Luca Paolini doppelganger, has a particular fondness for.

For more on one of Johnston’s cycling influences, head to the podcast’s back catalogue. In August 2020, two-time world champion Catharine Pendrel was featured. The episode, quite rightly, is titled “Catharine Pendrel is awesome.” Check it out.