CYCLING - Feel the fear - and cycle

Noeline Dean still gets nervous riding in bunches, and isn't too confident about starting and stopping on hills, but she's heading off on a 358km bike ride tomorrow.
The Whangarei woman is one of nearly 500 entrants, from as far away as Canada, who will be saddling up tomorrow for four days of cycling in the Twin Coast Cycle Challenge.
The tour travels from Whangarei to Dargaville tomorrow, to Opononi on Friday, to Paihia on Saturday and from Russell to Whangarei on Sunday.
Dean is a newcomer to cycling in the last six years, having been a top sportswoman most of her life.
Her transition from netball and running to cycling came when an injury left her unable to take part in high-impact sports, so it was suggested she try cycling.
"I grew up in Wellington and my parents never let me have a bike. So I really was brand new to cycling," she said.
On her first cycling attempt at Onerahi, she needed two grandchildren at either end of the bike to stabilise it. When she was asked to bike between the goalposts - "I missed," she admitted.
Her first Twin Coast cycle challenge was as part of a relay team in 2006.
"I was so nervous," Dean recalled. "But doing it in the relay gave me that little bit of confidence I needed."
The infamous Fat Boy team of keen Whangarei cyclists took Dean under their wing last year when she rode the four days herself for the first time.
She is still nervous about riding in groups, as she is always worried about toppling off and hurting someone else, but said the only way to get better is to get out and enter events.
She feels so strongly about promoting the sport of cycling, she has signed her real estate business on as a sponsor of the ride for the first time this year.
Dean has been training for the Twin Coast six days a week and said the best thing about the ride was the great atmosphere and companionship.
And the worst?
"The hill going into Omapere is a killer."
Sport Northland's Colleen Atchison says the youngest competitor in this year's ride is 15 and the oldest is 74. Three tandem bicycles had been entered and numbers earlier this week were 497, meaning "it's safe to say we'll have 500 entrants come Thursday".
There were a number of roadworks on the route, especially on Sunday's ride over the Helena Bay hill, but that and the weather were something cyclists simply had to take as it came.
"The advice is just to ride to the conditions," Atchison said.