Errin Mackridge was told after the 2024 UCI World Championships that she was an embarrassment to South Africa. She was 17, racing at her first Worlds, and she didn't finish. The people who said it weren't racing. They were typing.

She has six national titles now. Four on the mountain bike, two on the road. She is the reigning Junior South African Road Race Champion — a title she's won in back-to-back years, 2024 and 2025. She represented South Africa at the 2025 UCI Road World Championships in Kigali. And in August, she boards a plane to Banner Elk, North Carolina, to race for Lees-McRae College — one of the most successful collegiate cycling programmes in the United States, and the same programme that has produced the likes of Brent Bookwalter.

In this episode of The Active Hobo Podcast: Femme Series, Errin sits down to talk about the gap between SA racing and the European fields where the real depth lives, what Ty White has built at the Drive Academy in Ballito that keeps producing national champions, the sprint the Ballito locals jokingly call their "Holla Champs," and what it costs — financially, emotionally, and physically — to chase a professional contract from the bottom of Africa.

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

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0:00 ★ Meet Errin: six national titles at 18

1:28 ★ First title, red jersey, and a second-place that started everything

3:09 ★ 2024 — the year that changed the trajectory

4:09 ★ Winning SA Road Champs with Megan Botha in a two-up breakaway

6:03 ★ The deep pool of SA women's cycling nobody talks about

8:00 ★ Ty White, the Drive Academy, and the culture of winning

9:40 ★ Culture as the multiplier: why humility shows up in the results

10:40 ★ Road vs mountain bike: why XCO always wins

12:35 ★ The gap between SA and Europe is real, and it's money

14:12 ★ Lees-McRae College, North Carolina: the plan

19:29 ★ "I was told I'm an embarrassment to South Africa"

22:50 ★ Nutrition, Hexis, low-cadence intervals, and Holla Champs sprints

30:57 ★ Who she'll race at SA XCO Champs in Bloemfontein

32:29 ★ The kit she takes stateside, and why Maxxis stays