Photo: Edward Wilcock

When I was about 8 years old I had a BMX that lived at my grandparents house. If memory serves it was a red Raleigh and its tyres were always flat until I pumped them up. On occasion my Nan would take me to the local track where everything was giant and on a good day I would muster up the courage to drop in. I’d not long learnt to ride without trainers and it would be years before I got two wheels off the ground for more than a second.

We all have stories about how bikes came into our lives and for many of us bikes have been there for longer than most things. For some like Erice Van Leuven, they’ll look back one day and the experience of learning to ride a bike will be practically indistinguishable from learning to walk. 10 year old Erice’s story started at age 3 when in lieu of Playdoh or Tickle Me Elmo her most prized possession was a bicycle. Add to the mix two zealous brothers Finn and Ben, and the Van Leuven bicycle dynasty was born.

Sightings of Erice and her pink 16″ Hotrock are frequent at local events and the standard exclamation is ‘Phwoar! Did you see that girl on the tiny bike?’. At last week’s Mt Vic Super D Erice started the race in the big kids’ category and made short work of it, coming down the hill in under 10 minutes, a mere two and a half minutes behind the third woman overall.

A couple of facts are immediately clear watching this edit of the pint-sized pinner. By god she can ride a bike, and the stoke is strong within the young padawan. You don’t need a crystal ball to see that in a few years Erice will be doing things on a bike that make most of us feel very mortal.

Photo: Digby Shaw