The Women Who Move Us.

Growing up, Sarah Carrigan was always the athlete that I aspired to be, just because of how she was as a person. I remember I was a kid, watching her win gold at the Olympics, and the commentator said, “There would be a young girl sitting in the lounge room watching this one day, wishing this was her.”

And I just remember being like, “Mum, they’re talking about me!” I still even remember where I was. Seeing that was probably when I started really following her journey as a kid.

Mum, they’re talking about me!

The first time I went overseas as a senior, I had the Amy Gillett scholarship, so I was able to ride for the Australian team. My first race was the Giro d’Italia, and my teammate was Sarah Carrigan.

It was kind of that moment where I was looking up at my idol, and now she’s my roommate, telling me how to move through the peloton.

My mum was my hero, the one that I looked up to the most through my whole life. When my sister and I were kids, Mum and Dad would take us to any sporting event that we were interested in. My parents were both really active and into their sports. They had no idea about cycling, but they were always on the side, supporting me and making sure that I was happy, healthy and enjoying what I was doing.

Something that really shaped me and my whole family was the sudden diagnosis of my mum back in 2013 with breast cancer.

I was actually away in Italy racing my bike when I got the phone call. Dad just said Mum wasn’t well, and I remember thinking, “Okay, this is a bit weird.” When I came home a week later, Mum sat me down in the lounge room and told me, “I’ve got stage three cancer.”

Double mastectomy, and Mum being Mum, she was like, “I don’t want you to worry. I’ll be okay.” To watch her go through all that with the chemo, I’d go and sit with her in the hospital with so many other people in the chemo ward. It was super eye-opening because it made me realise all these people are suffering. It made me reflect: what I do is a privilege. I get to ride my bike for work.

Mum’s the glue of the family.

And that’s kind of what’s carried me into coaching. I get to be the glue. You’re the person that they come to.

Mum, my sister and I always say, “I love you to the moon and back.” I got that tattooed on my wrist as a nice little reminder that Mum’s with me, and my sister’s with me, all the time.

I’m very close with my mum. I see her at least twice a week, with dinner at hers once a week. We’re all within fifteen minutes of each other, which is really nice. It keeps us close.

Mum’s always been in exercise and fitness. She was an aerobics instructor, and then she went to uni at 40, well, from 39 to 41, while raising three girls. She got me into cycling. We did a triathlon together six years ago, and I was hooked.

There’s no timeline. You can do things later.

I think that’s really an unspoken problem with women. We always think, “Oh, I have to have kids by 30. I have to be married and in a house by whatever,” rather than just doing it in your own time.

I started something new six years ago, in my early 30s. Mum’s obviously done really well raising us three girls, but also doing things for herself. She’s shown me that independence is key.

For me, my story looks a little different to having one clear mentor. I haven’t had close family support and I’ve got an estranged relationship with my mum. I haven’t had a traditional coach or mentor, and a lot of my journey has been shaped through cycling itself and the women that I’ve ridden alongside over time.

I guess community has really been my mentor. I’ve learned by riding next to other women, by sharing that space and observing how they show up, how to persevere and support one another. That collective experience has played a huge role in how I navigate the sport.

Riding became my anchor.

Cycling has given me structure during the most uncertain periods of my life. It became a place to breathe and to feel strong again. Riding alongside women taught me that resilience isn’t about perfection.

Some days, riding was the only place that felt predictable. Training became less about performance and more about showing up, showing up for myself and remembering who I was outside of being just a mum.

I still don’t have the perfect balance. There are days that I still compare myself, and I’m still figuring it out.

I think part of inspiration is enabling, and Mum’s by far my biggest enabler. She would drive me to Melbourne two to three times a week—a three-hour journey each way—so I could do either track training or motor pacing with the VIS. She would sit there at the end of the pool doing lap times. She would come to the track. Anything it took, she was incredible.

She gave a lot of her time, her passion, her energy, and instilled so much belief in me from a young age that being an athlete was something I could do. It really was just challenging myself to do things that I didn’t think were necessarily humanly possible at that age.

She instilled a childlike love of adventure.

I had so much fun as a kid growing up. I think one thing my mum did before she instilled a determination for performance was really instil this childlike love of adventure.

I remember when I was 21, I actually quit the sport. I was on an AIS training camp in Melbourne, and I was waking up every day crying. I’d just won the under-23 National Road Championships. I just retired, racked the bike.

It was around then that I found mountain biking, and that has really kept me in the sport forever. I guess it was that perfect balance of performance and adventure.