Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1540851
EnduroGP EnduroGP US Wins FIM World Championship! US Wins FIM World Championship! By Rachel Gutish By Rachel Gutish Photos By Mastorgne Photography Photos By Mastorgne Photography 8 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com October 19th 2025 My hands are shaking, and it's so cold I can see my breath. My starter is making pi ful noises. It doesn't like the cold either. Like most modern bikes, there's no kickstarter. My breathing grows more and more ragged, and under my breath, I begin to curse, beg, and barter with my motorcycle, using every language fragment I've learned here at the EnduroGPs to make sure I get the point across. The other rider on my minute has le , now I'm joined up on the pla orm by the two riders star ng on the minute behind me. I turn the choke off. I give it more gas, less gas, trying everything… all the while with each failed cold-crank, the sound of the starter grows weaker and weaker as the ba ery drains. Over and over, like a drumbeat in my skull, the same thought echoes… this is how I lose the world tle… this is how I lose the world tle… this is how I lose the world tle… …but I'm ge ng ahead of myself. The story really begins either five days, nineteen months, or thirteen years prior, depending on who you're asking. Thirteen Years Earlier If you ask me, this story starts in the fall of 2012, when I was sixteen years old. By virtue of my per- formance at the ISDE qualifiers, I had been selected to compete for Team USA on the Women's World Trophy Team. I had wanted to race the ISDE ever since my dad went on a club team when I was a li le girl. Ge ng selected to race that year in Germany was a dream come true. It was also quite possibly the WORST idea we've ever had, and looking back, I cannot believe everybody just went along with it. I could write an en re ar cle about ISDE Germa- ny, but that would be too long, so here are the cliff notes. The night before the race, I dis nctly remember my mom burning the clutch out of our manual rental car (bless her, she s ll blames a faulty transmission to this day), and ge ng an emergency ride back to the hotel from some other Team USA members… but there weren't enough seats. Being the smallest, I was shoved unceremoniously into the trunk. I figured I was probably the only person in the

