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Peta: I loved my first year in Europe with head coach Warren Macdonald, but the program reformed throughout the summer under new management and it felt like a dictatorship to me. Liv: What made you fall out of love with road cycling? What was it about mountain biking that got you excited to compete again? Even now as a well-traveled adult, Europe still feels a little too far from home. When I first went over I couldn’t cook, I didn’t have a mobile phone and I certainly didn’t speak the language. What I struggled with the most was how far away from home it felt. When I went to Europe, I was grateful that I was hardy and felt physically prepared for the level of competition. When we went on training camps the expectation would be that I would ride with them, climb with them, and descend with them metre for metre. At 18, I would motor pace 140kms with the guys trying not to miss a turn. I would do club crits with men, state-based handicap racing with men, and track racing with men. There was barely a differentiation between men and women back then in Australia. In my first year, I raced the Giro D’Italia and fell in love. What we did have back then (that we sadly don’t have now) was a Women’s National Road Team who would head to a team base in Italy and race for a few months of the European season.

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That was a full squad as there was no development program and the teams pursuit event for women didn’t exist yet. In Australia, we had Katie Mactier, Kate Bates and Anna Meares racing track, all of whom were World Champions. The transition from track to road was easy for me.

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After my first National medal, I was picked up by the state institute, given a bike, fresh kit, free coaching… and the rest is history. I saved up for 18 months to buy a snazzy track bike. When I found cycling, I started working at the local bike shop and for every dollar I earnt my parents would also put in a dollar. Despite the hardship, I never missed out on anything. From the youngest age, I was well supported by people who didn’t have much more than I did. When I started cycling I wore an old kit and rode a donated bike with the shifters on the down tube. Peta: I was one of five kids, so we didn’t have a lot of money growing up. Liv: What was it like coming up through the ranks from track cycling to road racing? Join us as we find out what makes this champion tick. Think that’s all there is to know about Peta Mullens? Not even close. Her passion is reciprocated by the love she gets in return from her teammates, who refer to Peta simply as, “Mom.”

She serves the team as a director, but still pushes the younger talent between the tape as an athlete. I’m all in for bunch rides and cafe stops, trail-shredding, and slow night rides.”Ĭurrently, her greatest commitment is to her team: Roxsolt Liv SRAM. “No one I know loves cycling more than I do. “All in for me is about passion,” says Peta.

Fueled by passion rather than the pursuit of glory, she’s reinvented herself time and time again, inspiring the next generation along the way.įor Peta, being all in doesn’t mean training the hardest – it means not giving up the things you love. It’s that fierce commitment to being true to her “why” that could be the source of Peta’s success. During that time her spark for racing occasionally faded, but she has never been afraid to step away and reassess. Over the past 20 years, Peta has racked up 12 Australian National titles between road, mountain, and cyclocross.