Nikki Harris - About to make her Track Worlds Debut

 

Interview by British Cycling's Larry Hickmott

 

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The Great Britain team giving young riders experience of a Track World Championships is nothing new if talking to the likes of Chris Newton, Steve Cummings and the like is anything to go by, and the youngest of the 2005 World Championship squad is Nikki Harris. The young lady from Derbyshire who will be racing for the Specialised UK Women's Team in road and mountain biking this season will be wearing the new Adidas GB kit in Los Angeles.

 

Nikki was training right up until the day before she left for LA and by the time you read this, she and the rest of the team should well settled in the Team hotel in Los Angeles. At Manchester though, Nikki was being put through her paces on the track to give her the best preparation for the Points race which she expects will be the event she does at the World Championships. During the training session I sat in on, Nikki spent a lot of time behind the motorbike ridden by National coach Simon Jones doing a variety of efforts and 'racing' over every inch of the track, up and down the banking, slow fast tempo and more. By the end she admitted to being quite tired and was happy to have a chat about her debut in the Senior Worlds.

Above: Nikki warms up on her team issue Trek carbon road bike before a hard session on the track with National coach Simon Jones.

Asked if racing the Worlds helped motivate her during training, Nikki replied "definitely, I am just so happy to be chosen for the Senior Worlds especially at my age and everything. It's really good and encouraging."

It was this point some distant laughter suddenly distracted Nikki as Steve Cummings was up to some tricks behind my back to put Nikki off. Quite normal for a GB training session when the recorder comes out and showed how relaxed everyone was only a week before the years biggest event on the track.

Once the laughter had died down, Nikki agreed that being picked so early to ride the Worlds gives her something to go for as Beijing in 2008 starts to loom large on the horizon despite being four years away. The experience she says is really good, especially for a rider with limited time doing track racing. Nikki herself is honest enough to admit she has very little experience on the track with a few National Track Championships and a World Cup as a junior the extent of her track racing so far. A couple of very good performances at the Manchester World Cup this year though showed this young lady has a lot to offer on the boards and Nikki even goes as far as saying she's finding the track a lot of fun.

Right: Nikki enjoying the warmup behind the motorbike before a tough session of race efforts the day before flying to LA.

One of the things about any sport is that each discipline has its devotees and few think about crossing over into other areas but Nikki rides road, track, cyclo cross and mountain bike. "The track's really exciting because of the speed you get when you get out of the saddle and go for it" she explains. "Where as mountain biking is a bit more of a slog, which is fun in its own way, this is more about the speed."

It's all a far cry from when she started at the age of eight or nine. "I never even imagined I would be on the track riding for Great Britain" she says. "I thought, if it was anything, it would be mountain biking because that is what I am used to. This time last year, I couldn't have imagined that I would be going to the Senior Track Worlds."

But she is and like many who are given such a chance, she says she doesn't find it intimidating at all. "I am more excited than anything" she replies when I asked is she intimated by it all. "I just want to do my thing and concentrate on my ride and try and perform the best I can on the day."

In order to do that, its been quite a hectic period since the Manchester World Cup as the National coach looks to get her into the best shape possible for the Worlds whilst showing Nikki the hard work that's required to ride at this level. "The last few weeks I have been up here loads and I have got to know Simon and he's got to know me. We kind of work with each other by me saying how I'm feeling and what I think would be beneficial for me and he gives me ideas."



Nikki chases the motorbike during one of her many efforts on the boards of the Manchester track.

"My training has changed quite a bit over the last few weeks" Nikki went on to say. "The intensity has gone up and the endurance has kind of come down because its leading into the worlds and you need a lot of sharpness and stuff. I've been up here about two or three times a week training on the track."

With the trip home to Derbyshire being a little bit of a marathon, Nikki has been staying with another GB success story, Rachel Heal. This has enabled Nikki to train and do the track leagues to prepare for the big one, Los Angeles.

In the Points race she'll be riding the Sports Institute (SI) bike she has been given to race on for certain races and it's a bike she is certainly impressed with. It wasn't that long ago that a certain Chris Newton took up the challenge of the Points race on his own SI bike that he had previously only used for the Team Pursuit and he was rewarded with a Rainbow jersey. Nikki at only 18, may be too young to achieve that this time round but if her drive and aggression she showed at the Manchester World Cup is anything to go, she may well have another career highlight soon to add to the Youth Commonwealth Games (Gold, Mountain Biking), and the World Cup at Manchester only two months ago.

With such success already, its not surprising that the 18 year old has given up her Psychology and Sociology course at College to pursue bike riding full time. So after a short break once the Track Worlds is done and dusted, Nikki will then look to getting back into training and racing on the road and off it as she tackles a road and cross country (MTB) season for her Specialised team. My thanks to Nikki for talking to us and the best of luck in Los Angeles. British Cycling will be there to bring back images of the event and notes on how our riders get on.

 

Left: The GB National coach, Simon Jones takes Nikki up and down the track, slow and fast, to give her the race practice she'll need for the World Championship Points race in Los Angeles.