After less than five months in the saddle, 13-year-old Riley Faulkner has already broken her first national cycling speed record.
Riley completed the under 15 Girls 500m time trial at the Southland Track Cycling Championships during the weekend in just 38.2 seconds; beating the previous record set by Rhylee Akeroyd three years ago of 38.527.
Her parents are thrilled, and given she is at the younger end of her age class, they cannot wait to see what she will do next year.
“We’re really impressed with her determination,” mum Cherie Champion – a record breaker in her own right – said.
Champion and her teammate Erin Criglington broke a NZ Masters Team Sprint back in 2014 and now that mum and daughter are both on their bikes, the family spend most of their time at the Velodrome in Invercargill.
Riley was not thinking about records when she nervously took to the track, but she was really shocked when she saw her time after the trial.
She had tried her hand at all sorts of sports, but wanted to see if she would enjoy cycling as much as her mum.
Speed kind of runs in the family. Riley’s eldest brother Caden was an Australian School Athletics Champion, winning the 100m and 200m on multiple occasions.
He was coached by dad Mark Faulkner, who also has a background in sport, awarded the Australian Athletic Sprinter of the Year 2002-2003, and also a keen soccer player before an ACL injury.
Riley was riding faster than 47kmh when she broke her record and enjoys the speed but said “sometimes it’s a bit scary when you’ve got heaps of people next to you”.
Training involved track and road sessions.
Riley initially shared a bike with her mum until a coach noticed how well she was doing and offered to sell her a new one about two and a half months ago.
She still needed to acquire more aerodynamic gear that would probably make her even faster, her dad said.
Faulkner said the coaches at Cycling Southland had been “amazing” and Riley, a James Hargest student, was making lots of new friends.
The family are now anxiously waiting to hear if Riley will be chosen to compete in national championships.
Two other national records were broken at the Southland Track Cycling Championships.
Erin Criglington broke the Masters Women 50-54 500m time trial record, and Caitlin Kelly and Grace Griffin broke the under 15 girls 500m team sprint record in a special record attempt prior to the start of the championships, a spokesperson said.
