Cyclist’s Lake Taupō challenge enters 25th year

Sheryl Duncan is gearing up for her 25th Lake Taupō Cycle Challenge.

It’s no surprise Sheryl Duncan refers to cycling as her “happy place”.

A self-proclaimed late-starter to the sport, she has more than made up for lost time with an admirable list of event accolades and highlights.

This year, the 58-year-old Taupō woman will head to the start line for her 25th Lake Taupō Cycle Challenge event.

The challenge has a special place in her heart, she said.

“This is my local, it’s the one that started my whole journey, the one that kicked it off for me.

“It has evolved so much over the years, there is just so much you can choose to do if you want to.

“I don’t know where 25 years has gone, it feels more like 10.”

Rewind 25 years, and Sheryl can still recall her first Lake Taupō Cycle Challenge event.

Entering as part of a relay team, she has never looked back.

“You get the bug,” she said.

The next three years saw her take part in the relay event and then, as the team dropped away and her interest in the sport continued to grow, she seized the opportunity to complete the full 160km course on her own.

Despite comments from a couple of “disbelievers” who said they didn’t think she could do it, she used the opinions as motivation and ploughed on with her training.

Taking part in the Round The Lake event with a friend for the first time, Sheryl makes no secret of the fact there were tears.

“We cried, we cried really hard when we got over the finish line because we’d been out there for something like 7 hours and 40 minutes.

“We were exhausted and I think we’d stopped somewhere like Motuoapa and thought, ‘I don’t think we can do it, it’s too hard’.”

But it’s the high of the achievement, the absolute sense of accomplishment and the endorphin rush that comes from setting a goal and achieving it that keeps her coming back.

“Just that feeling you get when you cross the line and you’ve done it, you’ve ticked it off and it’s just like ‘Wow, I actually did it’.

“What a cool feeling.”

It was at that point that the rest became history.

In her own words, she “just kept riding”.

Clocking up 100km on her weekend rides with friends, she joined the Taupō Cycling Club and got to know a whole new community of people who were “really cool and really friendly”.

She continued taking part in the Cycle Challenge and watched as her times continued to get shorter and shorter, which prompted her to tackle a sub-five-hour personal record.

Her involvement with the event has also evolved over the years.

She’s been the minute-taker and later a member of the Lake Taupō Cycle Challenge Board of Trustees, an opportunity which allowed her to understand the inner workings of this iconic event, the largest of its kind in New Zealand.

So with her 25th event coming up in November, I’m curious, when does it end?

“I have no plans to stop.

“I have slowed down, but there’s a draw there.

“I still really love this. It’s my happy place.”

Enter the Lake Taupō Cycle Challenge at www.cyclechallenge.com.