The Sky's The Limit: Kate Courtney
Back for 2026, a fresh apparel collection developed with XC world champion and Olympian, Kate Courtney. Proudly supporting the She Sends Foundation, inspiring women and girls to chase their dreams.
WordsBetsy Welch
PhotographySydney Lewis
Sending it. A term that has broken out of the confines of the MTB world to become a mainstream moniker for commitment, bravery and perseverance. When you adopt it as an entire outlook, the sky’s the limit.
It’s no surprise, then, that Kate Courtney has taken its essence and put it at the heart of everything she does
‘She Sends’ is the name of Courtney’s team, the title of her Foundation, a mantra for taking risks and finding joy. It’s the title printed across her kit that informs this part of her cycling story.
The 2026 collection was developed in collaboration with XC World Champion and Olympian Kate Courtney. Proudly supporting the She Sends Foundation, inspiring women and girls to chase their dreams.
“I wanted this year's Rapha collection for the She Sends Foundation to capture that idea, and the feeling we get when we look up and are met with a sky of limitless opportunity”
Courtney is an athlete who has reached the very highest level of her sport, but the summit is never permanent. In 2020, she was ranked number one in the world, pre-qualified for the Tokyo Olympics, and poised for gold. Then came Covid.
“I dropped from first to 77th in the world ranking,” she says. “All of those underpinnings of that kind of mathematical equation of success started to break down.”
That collapse forced her to ask a harder question: why climb at all? It was a question that gnawed at her, and eventually, led her to hone in on what was most important.
“It's a feeling that I hope we can communicate through the She Sends Foundation, and that I hope can inspire more women and girls to dream big dreams: take on challenges, and remember that the sky is the limit.”
Already this year, Courtney has won the Sea Otter Fuego XL and a stage of the Tour de Feminin (a race outing on the road), all while reigning as world champion in the marathon XC.
The same curiosity that once fueled her rise — “this desire to go to the edge, find out what I'm capable of, and to be in a competitive environment that is designed to get the best out of me,” Kate says — still drives her. But now it’s braided with purpose. Performance matters, but so does what it means. Her story now is less about linear progression and more about possibility, connection and expansion.
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