Her ‘Learner’s Cap’ On, Handcyclist Kate Brim Has Rapidly Risen To The Top Of Her Sport

Kate Brim competes during the women's time trial H2 at the 2022 UCI Para-Cycling Road World Championships on Aug. 11, 2022 in Baie-Comeau, Quebec.

Handcyclist Kate Brim isn’t really into setting long-term goals for her athletic career.
So much changed so quickly in her world — on more than one occasion — that she’s learned to live in the moment, and it’s worked out quite well for her so far. Her biggest priority instead is to go into each race with a “learner’s cap.” It’s something she mentions with regularity, and it has also served the two-time world champion well to this point. 
“I’ve never been one to set personal goals as far as ‘I want to hit this time or this power,’” said Brim, 24, from Lowell, Michigan. “For me, it’s always been about just wanting to perform the best I personally can and be able to take away whatever I can from it to be able to continue bettering myself.”
Brim was 19 years old when her world changed completely the first time. What was supposed to be routine surgery for a herniated disc did not go as planned, and Brim’s spinal cord was damaged. She did her rehab at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital in Grand Rapids, and that’s where she was introduced to adaptive sports and joined the facility’s wheelchair rugby and handcycling teams. She fell in love with both sports, but for the first three years did them purely for fun and recreation.
“I was just getting connected with other people in similar situations as myself and getting myself active again,” she said. 
She entered her first handcycling race, the Amway River Bank Run in Grand Rapids, two years ago. The experience made her want to start training more seriously, and that eventually led her to last year’s national championships.
“I went into that race with my learner’s cap,” she said. “It was the first course that really had any challenge and so I went into it thinking alright, I’m just going to race my hardest and identify my weak points and what I need to work on. I wasn’t looking at standards at all at that point. Then I ended up ranking No. 1 and got qualified for the world cup in Quebec and the world championships.”
The wins started to pile up. Brim made her international debut at the UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in Quebec City in August and won both events she entered, then followed that up by winning a pair of world titles in the H2 classification in the women’s time trial and the road race. 
During the midst of all that, Brim was dealing with yet another life-changing development. She was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, and learning how to manage that not only as a quadriplegic with the unique challenges that brings but also as an elite athlete who needs to fuel her body a certain way has been challenging and scary at times, she said. 
A move to the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she has access to world-class dieticians, nutritionists and trainers who can help with that adjustment — not to mention access to world class mountains where she can train — has been a boost. So has joining Team Novo Nordisk, a professional cycling team whose members all have Type 1 diabetes. 
“Leaning back on my community is definitely what has always helped me most as far as my success,” she said. 
At the end of last year, Brim said she felt like she was stuck in a daydream with the amount of success she had. It still felt that way, she said, even before she traveled for the opening world cup race of the season and won gold in the H2 in both the time trial and road race this past weekend in Maniago, Italy.
“It still feels like it’s all been so surreal,” she said. “I can’t believe the new race season is already here and I’m super excited to see that this year has to bring.”
Of course, it’s hard to discuss someone who’s burst onto the scene with as much success as Brim without looking ahead to Paris 2024, but that’s not her style. She has a race before the next world cup events in Belgium because she wants to do “anything and everything” she can qualify for, she said. Beyond that, she’s not thinking too far ahead.
“I just want to be able to continue going into races with an open mind and a learner’s cap and taking away as much as possible from every race I do,” she said. “I’m excited to see what three weeks of racing does to my body and what I can take away from it, and just being with other racers on the course and continuing to grow.”