Wheels within wheels have conspired to send Sheryl Gates on the most thrilling trip of her lifetime. Joanna Davies explains.
Every Thursday during summer Sheryl Gates sits in the plywood box at the end of the track, keeping score for the racers competing at the Waitakere BMX Club.
When she's not keeping score she's busy being the club's secretary and treasurer, and supporting her two teenagers in their sporting careers.
"You do it for your children. I haven't ridden a bike myself since I was at school," she says. "I've sort of been roped in. It's always been something that my husband and the kids have been into."
But being involved has helped Mrs Gates score an expenses-paid trip to watch the final leg of the Tour de France in Paris.
"RaboDirect are sponsors of Bike New Zealand, and at our national BMX champs this year they had a stand with the competition entry.
"I was there in my gumboots, and I just entered and forgot all about it."
On July 24, Mrs Gates will be swapping the gumboots for her best high heels for a reception at Pavillon Ledoyen, a three-Michelin Star restaurant, to watch the competitors finish the race.
"I've always said that a holiday for me is one without the bikes, but this time I will just be watching," she says.
"It's going to be so different to the events we have been to.
"So much money goes into the Tour de France every year, and to win this trip at a BMX event is very exciting," she says.
"When I found out I'd won I got on the internet and started reading about the rules for road cycling, because I didn't know anything aboutit."
Mrs Gates' husband, Malcolm, will also be going and, after a few days in Paris, the pair will travel on to Copenhagen to watch son Brad compete in the BMX World Championships.
"We weren't planning on going to the world champs because it is a lot of money," says Mr Gates. "The timing just couldn't be better. It will be great to see Brad racing there."
Waitakere BMX Club president Robin Atkinson says the trip is well deserved. "Sheryl has made a huge contribution to our club. She's up here every club day helping out, and it's funny that she's won because she is the first to admit that she doesn't know anything about road bikes," says Mr Atkinson.
"The whole family is well known in BMX circles and our club just wouldn't be a club without them."
Riding on
Sheryl and Malcolm Gates' son, Brad, will compete in the BMX World Championships in Copenhagen next month, where he will race with the New Zealand BMX High Performance Squad.
Earlier this year he finished fourth in the junior division at the 2011 Oceania Continental Championships, and fifth at the 2011 Summer International Meeting in the elite junior
men's category.
His younger sister, Emma, also came fifth in the 2011 Summer International Meeting in her race category.
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