A Conversation with Lief Rodgers

Two weekends ago in Leogang, Austria, Port Moody’s Lief Rodgers snagged a well-deserved second place among some of the best enduro racers in the world. At only 22 years old, Lief is becoming a rider to watch as he gets as close as you can to the top step of the podium.

Last season, Lief claimed fifth in Loudenvielle, France, third in Haute-Savoie, France, and eighth at the World Championships in Valais, Switzerland. This put him at an impressive sixth in the EDR World Cup Overall, despite doing the series as a privateer after his team folded partway through the season.

Lief spent the winter training hard and working for the family business, and it seems like his efforts are paying off.

This year, Lief and fellow Canadian Evan Wall are being supported by Priority Bicycles, a New York-based company that is trying to get into the mountain bike scene after mostly making commuter bikes. They reached out via social media with the goal of proving their enduro bike—The Priority Vanth— on the Enduro World Cup, and the rest is history. Find a review of the Vanth here.

The second round of the UCI Enduro World Cup featured six gnarly stages with slick roots, rocky chutes, and about 71km of riding through gorgeous mountain passes. From flowy bike park terrain to steep alpine singletrack, this course challenged even the world’s best racers.

We caught up with Lief after his second-place finish.

NSMB: How did growing up in Port Moody and riding in the Sea to Sky shape you?

Lief: I think the riding community where I grew up was really sick. I had a lot of friends in middle school and high school who mountain biked a lot and have become successful mountain bikers themselves. I would just go riding after school every day with my friends, and that was kind of the training back then. We also have, you know, some of the best trails in the world. So I think that’s pretty good for training as well.

NSMB: What were your goals coming into the 2026 season?

Lief: My goal for the season was to get a lot more podiums. I got my first podium at the last World Cup of the year last year. So yeah, I just wanted more than that. And then I never really said that my goal was to win a World Cup this year, but that was kind of what I was thinking about through the whole off season. Like I don’t know, I think on the right day and if I were riding my best, I could win one. So yeah, that’s kind of one of my biggest goals for this season.

NSMB: Walk me through your weekend at the UCI Enduro World Cup in Leogang.

Lief: The first stage was a decently long one— it was super technical and covered in roots. So I was definitely really nervous at the top. The top of the first Enduro stage of the day is always super scary because you never really know how you’re feeling or how the day will go. But yeah, I rode that one pretty well. It was one of the hardest, most physical Enduro stages I think I’ve ever done, just with how slippery and rooty it was. I ended up third on the first stage, only a couple of seconds back.

So yeah, after that I could relax a bit, and I was like, okay, like I’m riding well today. So I just need to keep doing that. And then I think I was top three on every stage except for stage two, where I lost a little bit of time. I felt like I had a pretty good stage, but I was kind of losing a little focus, I guess on that one. It’s hard to keep that full race focus throughout like a whole seven-hour day. So, um, yeah, I kind of lost a little bit of time on that, and I ended up losing like nine seconds to a Slav who won his race on that stage. And then by the end, he only ended up beating me by four seconds. So, yeah, if I hadn’t lost so much time on that stage, it would have been pretty good.

Going into the last stage, I was less than a second ahead of third place and about four seconds behind first. So it was definitely pretty high pressure because me and third place were just both going for second. We were almost tied going into that one. So yeah, that was pretty stressful, and I was definitely nervous at the top of the last one, but I just tried my hardest and actually put down a really good run, which I was pretty proud of myself with. It’s hard to ride your best when you’re under that kind of pressure. But yeah, I put down like, I think pretty much my best run on the last stage and ended up beating that guy in third by a couple of seconds.

NSMB: What was it like to cross the finish line in second place?

Lief: I came down into the finish area and all my friends and my sister were there and they were just yelling and screaming and were super stoked. I just keep asking them, like, did I go into first? Did I go into first? They seed it so that the person who comes down last is the one who is going to win. So when I dropped it second to last, I knew that if I came down into first place before that last guy, then I was going to get second. So I just kept asking them over and over and then the results lit up on the screen and they told me. It was definitely insane.

NSMB: How do you handle this sort of pressure?

Lief: I think I’m usually a pretty calm rider in general. I think that sometimes my calm riding style doesn’t help me so much in racing. A lot of the time I struggle with just riding too smoothly and safely. So I think the nerves kind of helped me take those extra risks, I guess.

NSMB: Does this result change any of your goals for the rest of the season?

Lief: It doesn’t really change many of my goals. I just want to get more podiums and try aiming for a win. But yeah, it doesn’t really change how I feel going into the races. Like I’m still just going to do the best that I can, and you know, just focus on my riding and focus on what I need to do. I don’t perform as well when I’m just focusing on what place I’m going for. So, yeah, I’ll just be focusing on hitting my lines and riding well and then hoping the results follow, I guess.

NSMB: I recently saw a video of you putting nutella on potatoes… What’s up with that?

Lief: Okay, well, that’s not just the usual, like, everyday meal I’m having. I’ve pretty much never eaten Nutella, but we have like a 20 or 30-minute break, usually around halfway through the day, where we’ll go back to the pits and we’ll have time to fix our bikes if anything’s broken and eat some food. So, after a lot of trial and error, we figured out that rice obviously has a lot of carbs in it, but just having some rice with some potatoes is pretty hard to get down when it’s like a hot, hot day out riding. So we started putting jam and Nutella on the rice and potatoes and it’s super easy to get down, and a lot of carbs.

NSMB: Is there anyone you want to thank or shoutout?

Lief: My parents have been so supportive of this and of all my goals. Yeah, mostly thanks to my mom and dad. And then also I’m thankful to Priority for giving me this opportunity to come here and race. Like there’s not a lot of support in Enduro these days. But Priority, I guess saw something in Evan and I and were keen to send us to all these races. Yeah, I’m so thankful for that, because I think without the support from them, I wouldn’t be able to afford to race the whole series.

NSMB: Anything else you want our readers to know before you go?

Lief: I want people to go on the Priority Bikes YouTube and watch all of our race episodes. We have episode three of our series coming out. It’s just basically following Evan and I around racing as privateers, like working on our own bikes the night before races and, um, making suspicious meals and stuff like that. So they’re pretty funny.

Lief will be racing the full UCI Enduro World Cup series, plus some events like the Crankworx Whistler Enduro. Best of luck with rest of your season, Lief, and thanks for chatting with us!