Henley Beach mountain bike rider has eyes on Adelaide cyclo-cross title after recovering from broken collarbone

SA mountain bike rider Terri Rhodes has had her fair share of falls and broken bones but she keeps going back for more mud, jumps and mayhem. Here’s why ...

MOUNTAIN bike rider Terri Rhodes ignores the throbbing and numbness in her rebuilt shoulder because no pain will ever take away the joy of being back in the saddle.

Even the gruelling early-morning training rides for this weekend’s national cyclo-cross championships have ranked as her favourite part of the day.

It is because just three years ago The Port Adelaide Cycling Club member’s budding career was on the rocks.

She had just shattered her right collarbone in a fall during the Oceania Mountain Bike Continental Championships in Shepparton.

Weeks after the pins and plates inserted in her shoulder were removed she broke it again and a subsequent bout of golden staph added insult to injury.

“Cycling is my life and I just love being back on the bike,” Rhodes, of Henley Beach, says.

“The activity is like an addiction and it was hard going without training.

“It helps with stresses in life, I have to ride, if that makes sense.”

Rhodes is gearing up for her back-to-back tilt in the Adelaide leg of the National Cyclo-cross Championships in the southern parklands this weekend.

She uses the events — mix of extreme mountain biking and cross country running where riders dismount to carry their bikes over logs, rivers and rocks — as training for mountain bike.

Her goal is to make the Australian mountain bike team for the 2015 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games.

Port Adelaide Cycling Club is hosting the event, which will feature hundreds of riders in elite, masters and amateur classes.

Rhodes won Adelaide’s inaugural race at the Chateau Tanunda last year.

Cyclo-cross is gaining popularity in Australia and is expected to attract about 1000 people this weekend after booming in Europe as professional riders use it as a way of training and competing during the northern winter.

“The intensity of it is the most difficult to adjust to,” says Rhodes, who switched to mountain biking from road racing seven years ago.

“Your heart rate can be up around 180 (beats per minute) and you’ve got to jump over a log carrying your bike.

“It’s a great spectator sport so I think that is contributing to its success and you don’t have to be an elite rider to get involved.”

National Cyclo-cross, corner South Tce and Beaumont Rd, Adelaide, Saturday, August 3, 10am and corner Cemetery Rd and Sir Donald Bradman Drive Sunday, August 4, 10am.