In September 2025, Tyler Jacobs became the first South African woman to ever win a medal at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships short track race. Three years earlier, she was getting dropped by her dad and her brothers on Sunday rides and crying about having to go.

Tyler is 21. She rides for Liv Factory Racing out of the United States, trains out of Stellenbosch with coach Barry Austin, and in 2026 added the South African Elite Women's Road Race Championship to her name in her final year as an Under-23. A month after Worlds, she won her first UCI World Cup — the U23 XCC at Lake Placid — on the global debut of Liv's new Pique Prototype. The frame has "factory test prototype frame number 4" printed on the side of it. She's one of only four people in the world riding one.

In this episode of The Active Hobo Podcast: Femme Series, Tyler sits down to talk about nine years growing up in Nairobi, being the kid who had to be pumped up and packed for rides she didn't want to go on, meeting Ty White at the Drive Academy in Ballito in 2022 and everything that followed, getting picked up by Liv in Leogang after running the last half lap with a smashed wheel, what the Matterhorn podium actually felt like, and why she describes herself as "the most unserious person" her roommate has ever met — except during intervals.

🔗 Scicon Sports SA — Premium eyewear and luggage for cyclists who take their kit seriously. https://theactivehobo.short.gy/sciconsports-discount

👍 Like, Subscribe

0:00 ★ Meet Tyler: historic Worlds bronze, Lake Placid World Cup winner

1:00 ★ Born in Umhlanga, moved to Nairobi at nine

2:42 ★ Home-schooled, always active, never serious about the bike

7:07 ★ 2022: meeting Ty White and Drive Academy in Ballito

10:14 ★ The Holla Trails sprint the locals call "World Champs"

12:09 ★ Why the European field is a different sport

18:00 ★ The SA pipeline: what's working, what isn't

24:36 ★ Living and training in Stellenbosch

24:57 ★ Coach Barry Austin and learning to use the course, not just the power

27:22 ★ Winning SA Elite Women's Road Champs by being bored

31:40 ★ How a smashed wheel and a run to the finish got her a Liv contract

34:27 ★ Brazil, Harry and Lloyd, and finishing 5th-6th as teammates

35:57 ★ Worlds 2025: rice and Nutella, then the podium

38:41 ★ The first McDonald's of her life

40:30 ★ Inside Liv Factory Racing

48:35 ★ The Austrian team house

49:14 ★ Cape Town Cycle Tour and the state of SA women's racing

52:37 ★ The XCO goal: top three in 2026