An introduction..

An introductory post I wrote in 2005 on New Zealand's best cycling website, www.vorb.org.nz.

Hi, My name is Celia. I was born in China but moved to New Zealand when I was three. Lived in Johnsonville for a couple of years before we moved to Upper Hutt. Did my first year at Victoria Uni, planning on majoring in Chemistry and Maths, but decided I liked Psychology better. Moved down to Dunedin after my first year at Vic and am currently at the end of my second year of a PhD in Psychology. [Note: written 20o5 - have now graduated with my PhD and am working at Victoria University, Wellington.]

With regards to biking, I first learnt how to ride a bike (quite late actually! I was about 8-9), on a crappy green bike which was too big for me. I then had a nice blue BMX that lasted me until my parents bought me a new bike (a lovely warehouse "himalaya" bike) for Christmas the year before I started intermediate. Rode my bike to intermediate and to work when I got a bit older.

Nothing bike-related for a few years.. until..

When I met Scotty [then boyfriend, now husband!] in 2002, I didn't realise that mountainbikes were so flash! I remember when I first walked into the "Otago Institute of Dirt" where he lived and being amazed/astounded at the number of bikes in the hallway! They were way flasher than my rigid warehouse bike ever was! It took me a few months to get into mountainbiking. I realised that if I wanted to spend "quality" time with Scotty, I'd have to take up this mountainbiking thing.

I bought my first bike secondhand off Scotty's boss's wife at R&R, a Giant ATX890 hardtail with 80mm Z5s on the front. I went for my first MTB ride in Naseby at an R&R mid-winter Christmas do, and was so afraid to ride down slopes at all! The parts on the ATX all eventually got replaced, and the bike at the end of one year of owning it was so different from when it started!

Gradually, I got a bit better at riding and found Vorb, which also helped. On a trip up to Wellington in 2003, I met up with some Vorbers and went on a ride up Makara Peak, and loved the trails up there (can't wait to head back up!). At the beginning of 2004, we tagged along to a Southern Vorb Mobbing and also met some more riding buddies and friends.

In 2004, I joined the Otago University MTB Club and realised how unfit and beginner-ish I was compared to all the fast XC racer types in the club that year. Unfortunately, the focus of the Club at the time was more into riding for "training's" sake, and not riding for fun, so many of the rides ended up being "who can ride to the top of the hill the fastest!", with very little room or patience for unfit newbies like myself who were getting into the sport. Eventually, stopped riding with the club.

So, I'd been riding my hardtail through all this, which was fine, but when a deal came up to purchase a Santa Cruz Heckler frame, I decided that I wanted it for it's full suspension goodness. I took out a bank loan to afford the frame(!), and threw all the bits off the hardtail onto the Heckler. The Heckler's been a great bike to ride, and I'm glad I've got it. Sadly, it's never going to be the lightest full suspension bike in the world, and is an absolute pig to climb on long uphills, which is why I've recently purchased an XTC1 (still in the shop waiting to be built last time I checked).

A few months ago, I joined a weekly women's-only riding group, and have been really enjoying riding with other females. Drops and obstacles look more achievable for some reason when I see other girls do them (instead of Scotty saying "go on! It's easy!" When he's been doing it for years), and these rides usually consist of quite sizeable climbs, which is helping my fitness. I'm usually at the back of the group on the uphills, but that's fine. They all wait for me, and the girls are all really supportive. They even convinced me to "race" last weekend in on a track that we'd been practising sections of. I'm glad I raced (even though I was the last person on the uphills again!), and it was good to win Senior Women in Rec class, even though I was the only woman riding in rec class!