TD: Where/who do you get your inspiration/advice/tips/ tricks from right now? My sister can ride and would have been amazing if she decided to take it up but horses are her thing and she is very good at it, which also helped drive me to be my best. Dad currently has a WR250 & KTM 990, my Mum has a Honda CT110, postie bike and used to ride my CR80 with XR200 engine, to work up the country roads. SH: Everyone in my family can ride dirt bikes. TD: Who else in the family ride dirt bikes? Oh did I mention that I struggle with other women passing me too? Apparently I have overcome that too, after getting smoked by the Senior Women at the 2019 NZ Vet and Women’s MX Nats. It took me years to understand that and I now try to ride within my limits and have fun. ![]() One wise man once told me that not everything in life is a race. SH: Slowing myself down! I’m a MX rider by heart and on an MX track you ride as FAST as you can, out on the trails you need to slow down (otherwise trees grow legs and run in front of you when you least expect it) ha, ha…or a tree root will take you down! Seriously I try to back it off these days. TD: What do you still struggle with when out on the trail? It does not matter what level you are at with riding, the personal satisfaction you get after achieving a new skill gives you the same amazing feeling of accomplishment. Learning the basic skills required to get around a track, the more I improved the more I wanted to learn - it’s a crazy fun addiction. Saying that, nothing about bike riding seamed easy to start with, every ride was a challenge while at the same time an amazing fun journey. SH: Having fun, with Mum and Dad right next to me, nothing was a problem. TD: What did you initially find easy about riding dirt bikes? Second bike XL75 then I got a CR80 that Dad and a friend transplanted an XR200 motor into, because he didn’t like the power of the two strokes back then. I just loved to ride and my best mate who lived next door (Ian Drake) also had a BMX so it was even better riding with a friend. As mentioned above my first motorbike was a PW50. ![]() Lucky because next, I had planned to try to quad it on my XL75! Dad put an end to that and got the lime works truck back and squashed two of those double jumps. I hit the third ramp and winded myself thinking, “am I was going to die”?. I made two sets of double jumps and tried to quad them, ha, ha and that didn’t end well. I even built my own BMX track (which we now call a pump track) out of lime with a wheelbarrow and spade. It ended up with no brakes but that didn’t hold me back. SH: My first bike was a plastic tricycle, then I got a BMX which got totally thrashed. TD: Tell me what was your first bike and why? ![]() Motocross was my dream and I had posters all over my bedroom walls of Craig Dack, Kym Ashkenazi and other MX riding stars. I have memories of MX friends pulling me and my bike out of muddy bog holes, pushing me up steep clay muddy hills and encouraging me to get out of first gear and hold it on, down these steep wet clay hills (Thanks Smiley)… Not knowing it at the time, all of this built a strong platform for later in life. I wasn’t very patient and didn't enjoy waiting around the pits much but it wasn’t long before Dad and the club started to run Junior 45 minute mini hair scrambles. Dad loved to race these two-hour hare scrambles and was very good at them. I was always with him, riding around while helping out with putting the arrows up, moving logs, etc, and genially honing around. That progressed into trail riding, then hare scrambles where Dad helped set up and run these for many years with the Whangarei MCC. Right from the start, Dad was beside me riding around farms, pulling wheelies and having fun.
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