The 33-year-old from Colorado is the highest-ranked cyclocross rider to compete in New Zealand.
She has amassed 12 world cup wins and three medals at world championships, plus the elite women's title at the United States championships each year for the past eight years.
Compton was invited by the Queenstown Mountain Bike Club to help promote the sport by participating in a public cyclocross clinic at the race course, on the lower paddocks through Remarkables Park Town Centre, today.
Those who attend can learn about the sport and pre-ride the course when the clinic is open between 2pm and 4pm.
Compton was also in the Wakatipu to raise awareness of the cyclocross series to begin on the course the next day.
The race was organised by the club as part of the Queenstown Winter Festival and is expected to include 60 riders when it begins at 2pm.
Compton said cyclocross was a combination of mountain biking and road biking.
The bicycles looked like "road bikes on steroids", with wider brakes to allow for mud to pass through and more stable, but slower, steering.
The tight 3km course on trails, grass and both on and off-road terrain involved riders dismounting to run up hills and over barriers, Compton said.
"Cross is just fun.
"It's like super great fitness sport, it's high intensity, it's fast, it's spectator- friendly, it's short and sweet.
"For women it's 40 minutes, and for men it's an hour, and it's just as hard as you can go for that amount of time and then you're thoroughly exhausted, so it's perfect."
Cyclocross has been hailed as the fastest-growing two-wheeled sport in the United States.
The sport draws large crowds in Europe such as this year's world championships in Belgium, which attracted 60,000 spectators.
Compton said 2012 was the first year there was a national cyclocross series in New Zealand and more cyclists were taking up the sport.
"It's been really popular in Europe and the US for quite a few years, but since the seasons are opposite - it's a winter sport - it's hard to get into when it's summer in New Zealand," she said.
"Now it seems it's growing for this winter and New Zealanders are getting behind it and enjoying the racing."
