Student Life Sports General

Wrightsman enjoys camaraderie, competition with MSU Cycling

Andy Newberry
27 February 2026
4 min read

Gabrielle Wrightsman and Emma Kasza-James were competitors back in Wisconsin long before they joined MSU Cycling.

In some ways, not much has changed except for their home base in Wichita Falls, Texas. They’re teammates and friends, and remain competitors as the lone two members of the MSU Cycling women’s team in Spring 2026.

Both have excelled in collegiate cycling. Wrightsman won the conference race in road racing in April 2025, and was 18th in the criterium and 22nd in the road race in her first trip to nationals. She won the 2025 Hotter-N Hell Hundred CAT-1 race.

Kasza-James has won a lot, too, including the women’s CAT-1 mountain bike race at Hotter-N Hell Hundred in 2024 and was 15th at the 2025 Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championships in October.

Wrightsman believes this is going to be a good year as “nationals are in Madison, Wisconsin, so it’ll be home territory to me.” She enjoyed the home cooking last June, winning the criterium race at the Kwik Trip Tour of America’s Dairyland while racing for White Space Bikes.

While the women’s team has just two riders this year, both Wrightsman and Kasza-James have many treasured teammates with MSU Cycling. Not all the riders are at the same skill level or have the same amount of experience, but the kinship they feel while riding around Wichita Falls each week is something they relish.

“I just really like being in an area where pretty much everyone around me bikes,” Wrightsman said. “At home, I had people like Emma, but they were an hour away. I was pretty much the only one in my town. I really enjoy being here. It’s my people!”

MSU Cycling members come from different parts of the country or the globe, but they share a mission to make progress toward the finish line, whether that be the next race or graduation. Wrightsman loves that!

Wrightsman said that at her high school graduation party, she convinced Kasza-James to think about coming to MSU Texas. Her rival from mountain biking, cross country, and road racing had returned from Study Abroad. It’s been a great pairing for MSU Cycling.

“She is the reason I’m here,” Kasza-James said. “She sees me as a friend and competitor and someone she wanted by her side. She got me to interview with (former MSU Cycling director Pablo Cruz Trochez), and it was a good fit. She and I have been able to race, not only against each other but with each other at every race we’ve been to.”

Kasza-James has a lot of admiration for Wrightsman as a person, too.

“She is such a mellow person, goes with the flow for everything,” Kasza-James said. “She will never be uptight and snappy. She’s amazing! I’m very Type A, and sometimes I just need that person to be like, 'Hey, it’s OK, breathe.'”

Gabby Wrightsman 2026 MSU Cycling — MSU Texas sophomore Gabrielle Wrightsman

Knowing each other also helps them on the cycling trails.

“We’ve learned each other pretty well,” Kasza-James said. “She knows a lot about what I’m doing and can predict a lot about what I’m going to do, and I know a lot about what she’s going to do. We know what strengths and weaknesses we have, and we can lean into that when we’re racing as a team and fighting a bigger opponent.”

Wrightsman has embraced Collegiate Cycling and also her studies at the McCoy College of Science, Mathematics & Engineering.

“I like the competition a lot, especially nationals,” Wrightsman said. “I think it’s really nice to have a big mixture of all different backgrounds all together having the same opportunity.”

Wrightsman, a geosciences major, has found many great spots on the MSU Texas campus – considered among the Most Beautiful Campuses in Texas (LINK) – and inside the buildings, she said, it has been great to explore and find great places to study. “You can go in all of the buildings, even if it’s not your building, and find little cubby areas,” she said. “I love the new area at Bolin, it’s so nice.”

And it’s been very nice for Wrightsman to have a Wisconsin teammate and men’s teammates from all over the country and the world to root her on as she tries to meet her cycling goals. Wrightsman enjoys riding around the smooth paved roads near Holliday, and her favorite is a three-hour ride to the Four Corners area, coming back toward town past the Jolly gas station.

Every race doesn’t promise to be that smooth, but Wrightsman started her college season by winning the Omnium at College Station, while Kasza-James won the road race. “I think it’s going to be a good year,” Wrightsman said.