Sea Otter Australia has always pulled a bigger crowd of names than a festival this young has any right to, and 2026 is shaping up as the biggest line-up yet.
Legends, champions, YouTube stars, and a fair few people your kids will recognise before you do. Here’s who to look out for across the weekend, and where to catch them.
The one your kids will lose it over: Jack “Moi Moi” Moir
Jack Moir. If there’s one name that gets a line forming at the expo, it’s this one. Jack spent fourteen years at the pointy end of world downhill and enduro racing, winning the Enduro World Series overall in 2021 and standing on World Cup and Crankworx podiums along the way, before retiring from professional racing this year. These days he’s better known to a whole generation of young riders as the guy behind Moi Moi TV, the YouTube series that’s made him one of the most watched personalities in mountain biking.
Get your kids there early, this is the autograph queue of the weekend.
The one Dad’s been talking about for weeks: Hans Rey
Hans Rey. Every mountain bike dad of a certain age has a Hans Rey story, and most of them involve a magazine cover from about 1995. Hans is a genuine pioneer of the sport, a former World and X Games trials champion, Mountain Bike Hall of Fame inductee, and the man who turned “mountain bike adventure” into its own genre by riding trials lines across more than 70 countries. He’s flying in from the US for Sea Otter Australia, riding with Bosch and Santa Cruz, and floating between the eMTB demo zone and the Santa Cruz activation across the weekend.
Wyn Masters. New for 2026: Hans is putting his wheelie skills on the line against New Zealand’s Wyn Masters in a head-to-head wheelie comp.
Wyn is a former World Cup downhill racer turned enduro (EWS) competitor from New Plymouth, NZ, who spent two years working as a miner in Australia early in his career just to fund his first full World Cup season. He’s ridden for GT Bikes for over a decade and recently signed with FOCUS Bikes, but he’s just as well known these days for his weekly wheelie and manual videos and his YouTube interviews with fellow pros, plus a GoFundMe he ran to support unsponsored privateer racers on the World Cup and EWS circuits. This isn’t a novelty pairing, it’s two of the best in the world at this specific skill going head-to-head.
If you’ve ever wondered who’d win a wheelie battle between a 60-year-old trials legend and a pro enduro racer half his age, here’s your answer, live.
Paul “Vandy” Van Der Ploeg. And here’s the one that actually gets you riding alongside them: Hans isn’t leading the eMTB demos alone. Vandy, flagged as a Bosch ambassador, is fronting the demo sessions with him. He’s a genuine Australian mountain bike great — 2013 UCI Eliminator World Champion, a long-time XCO name on Giant before a recent move to Focus, these days branching into enduro and gravel, and instantly recognisable on course at close to seven feet tall. Between the two of them, this is as good as it gets: book a demo slot and there’s a real chance you’re rolling out of the Bosch pits next to a mountain bike legend and one of Australia’s most decorated riders.
adventurer and enviromentalist: Annie Ford
Annie Ford. Annie is a marine scientist, Guinness World Record holder, cold-water sailor, and environmental campaigner who discovered mountain biking on the trails at Maydena in Tasmania and has been riding it into her advocacy work ever since — her campaigns have covered native revegetation, waterways management, and a high-profile push that helped shut down a major offshore seismic survey in Australian waters.
In the lead up to Sea Otter Australia Annie will be travelling overland from Tasmania as part of the “Road To Sea Otter Australia“. Annie will ride trails, camp out, cross Bass Strait and meet plenty of riders along the way, before rolling into the Sea Otter Expo from 23 to 25 October. Her Subaru cars are loaded with Thule gear, and the Roof Racks Galore team is fitting it.
She was the opening keynote at the very first Sea Otter Australia in 2025, and she’s back for 2026.
The one who smashed it last year: Caroline Buchanan
Caroline Buchanan. Caroline needs no introduction for anyone who’s followed Australian cycling — a dual Olympian, three-time BMX World Champion and five-time Mountain Bike World Champion, and one of the most decorated female action sports athletes this country has produced. At Sea Otter Australia 2025 she lit up the eOtterX, described at the time as riding the course “like it was built for her.” She’s back for 2026 and will be involved with a whole range of epic activations across the festival.
The racers to watch
The SMITH Optics Enduro field has some serious depth this year.
Ellie Smith. Back on top and doing double duty, confirmed racing both the eOtterX – Bosch ePowered and the SMITH Optics Enduro. The Central Coast rider is a three-time Australian downhill national champion and a qualified welder/fabricator off the bike.
Rhys Ellis. A Hobart-based coach and event organiser who’s been central to building Maydena Bike Park into what it is today, and a Smith ambassador who wears Smith’s prescription lens inserts himself — a nice tie-in to the eyewear side of the brand. Confirmed on the SMITH Optics Enduro start list, and also one of this year’s three MCs (see below), so he’s pulling double duty across the whole weekend.
Pat Broughton. Confirmed on the SMITH Optics Enduro start list.
Kaiden Godden. A Western Australian regional enduro racer and mechanic making the trip from Denmark, WA, confirmed on the SMITH Optics Enduro start list.
Ollie Davis. Confirmed to jet in with Trek, we’ll be watching which start line he’s going to pick! Hailing from Albury/Wodonga Ollie Davis has had a meteoric rise through the ranks of World Cup Downhill over the past few seasons. Joining the Trek Factory Racing team he’s nabbed a spot on one of the biggest teams in the paddock.
Cam Clemett. Confirmed to come in with Maxxis, this NZ Downhill and gravity racer who calls Oz home has a massive following on socials. He is known for publishing high-octane POV riding clips, bike checks, and documenting the grueling realities of elite downhill racing.
On the mic and in the crowd
Roaming the expo for three days straight, the 2026 power MC crew is confirmed as Josh Carlson, Rhys Ellis and Chris Sansom.
Josh Carlson. Confirmed as the third of the three power MCs. A three-time Australian national MTB champion who raced internationally at World Cup and Enduro World Series level for over a decade, Josh has spent recent years building an equally serious reputation as a broadcaster — hosting the UCI Mountain Bike World Series coverage on Eurosport, Discovery+, Stan Sport and MAX with his own “Carlson On Course” segment, before stepping back from full-time racing in 2024. Racer and commentator in one, he’s arguably the most recognisable voice of the three MCs — if you’ve watched World Cup racing on TV in the last two years, you already know it.
Rhys Ellis. Also racing the SMITH Optics Enduro this year (see above), Rhys pulls double duty as an MC too, bringing the local knowledge as a Maydena regular and coach. He MC’d Sea Otter Australia in 2025 as well, so this is a returning face on the mic, not a new one.
Chris Sansom. Rounds out the MC crew as a familiar face from Flow Mountain Bike’s video content.
Sarsha Huntington. Queensland gravity legend Sarsha Huntington is taking over the Sea Otter Australia socials again this year! Starting in BMX before making the jump to MTB in 2005, Sarsha fast-tracked her way to the top of the Australian gravity scene. She stacked up back-to-back Australian 4X National Series titles, snapped up Oceania crowns in 4X and Dual Slalom, and took on the world stage, throwing down a 2nd place finish at the Maribor World Cup and a top-10 at World Champs. Expect big energy, deep roots, and pure stoke as she brings her legendary race pedigree to the mic!
Mike Tomalaris. One of the iconic “voices of cycling” in Australia. As a long-term Tour de France commentator for SBS Cycling, Mike will be sending off our endurance racers at the startlines of the Thule Marathon and the Maxxis Effervelo Gravel Fondo and welcome everyone back at the finish line.
Sian A’Hern. On the ground all weekend too, though not racing — she’s confirmed to be racing the eOtterX – Bosch ePowered event, running interviews and social content for Gold Sponsor Maxxis and her own sponsors in the Expo pits, so if you see a rider getting mic’d up between runs, it’s likely her doing the asking. Sian’s own background gives her the credibility for it: a four-time Australian downhill national champion from Canberra, from a genuine mountain biking family (her brother Kye is also a champion rider, their father a two-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist).
Where to see them race
- eOtterX – Bosch ePowered, Mogo Trails, Friday
- THULE Marathon, Friday
- Fox Superflow and SMITH Optics Enduro, Mogo Trails, Saturday and Sunday
- Shimano XC Crit, Hanging Rock, Saturday, the most watchable race of the weekend, crowd right on the fence
- MAXXIS Effervelo Gravel Fondo, South Coast roads, Sunday
- Muc-Off Ottercross, Batemans Bay Marine Park, Sunday, sand flying, short laps
- Otter Jam Freestyle Comp, Hanging Rock, Sunday, the gap between the riders and the crowd is about three metres
