With Covid sweeping through NZ, Sonia Foote has found a global cycling race the virus can’t touch. Even better, it’s in her garage.
This Sunday morning, when most of the country is still in bed or contemplating breakfast, Sonia Foote will be in her Rotorua garage: windows and doors open, heart thundering, legs screaming, sweat flying.
On a special trainer bike, she’ll be wincing as she looks up at a screen while feverishly pedalling, as elite cycling women from around the world dart across a futuristic course in New York.
It’s going to hurt. A lot.
“I hope it’s painful because if it isn't painful, then I'll just be riding around, and that's no good,” she laughs.
Foote is representing New Zealand in cycling’s esports world championships. Competitors take part through Zwift – the popular online racing platform that connects your home trainer to a virtual world, where you can take on thousands of people on a variety of different terrains.
The faster you pedal in your lounge, the faster your avatar on screen goes, creating an addicting and exhausting experience that’s been lapped up by pros and weekend warriors alike.
Foote wasn’t sure about Zwift when her partner first suggested it to her. There wasn’t anything exciting about riding a training bike, something she’d done for years as a former national mountain-bike champion and Commonwealth Games rider, and the video game side of it was unfamiliar.
But as a mum of four, it was hard to get out and about, and being able to ride from home was appealing.
She used it for training to start with, limiting herself to two or three workouts a week while she was still breastfeeding her youngest. That escalated once Covid started cancelling a lot of her events last winter, and she got involved with a six-week series on Zwift organised by Triathlon New Zealand. It didn’t take long before she was hooked.
From there, Foote got involved in the Zwift Racing League, which is a team competition. It brought her together with like-minded athletes who loved training and having a good natter.
“I met all these wonderful women and most of us are mums, and it gave me that sense of connectedness and belonging that you get from sport,” says Foote, who represented New Zealand in cross-country mountain biking at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, and was a world Xterra off-road triathlon champion.
“Once you’re post-natal and you’re away from your work, home becomes your biggest place. Connecting with others outside isn’t so easy, so it was just super lovely.”
While she was riding one day, she saw the details of the qualification process for the esports world championships pop up. It piqued her interest, and as someone who’s always been “a bit of a shoot for the stars” person, she got herself signed up for the Continental qualifier.
"I know I’m going to have to hang on like a pig dog!"
She needed a top-five finish to automatically make it through, but after just a few minutes of racing, she was shocked to see a notification pop up kicking her out of the event.
“I was just absolutely devastated…and I was like I’m not getting back on that thing!” she says.
Foote emailed one of the organisers and found out she was using one of the only trainers that wasn’t recognised by Zwift, as it didn’t reliably read her power data accurately enough.
She shrugged her shoulders and started thinking about getting organised for the following year, until she saw Cycling NZ had two spots up for grabs and she could apply for selection.
“I thought ‘Oh god they’re never going to select me, because I’m old and I’ve been there, done that’. But I was like ‘Sonia, you never know if you don’t try, just put your name in the hat’,” the 43-year-old says.
And it was just as well she did, because Cycling NZ soon sent her an email confirming she’d been picked for the world champs.
“I was just ecstatic, you really can’t put it any other way, it was just so cool. And it’s such a privilege,” she says.
She’s been training hard ever since, jumping on the bike once the kids are in bed, and racing long into the night - and even into the next day once or twice.
While Zwift seems like a playful video game, cycling’s governing body, the UCI, aren’t messing around when it comes to the integrity of the world champs.
Each athlete has been sent exactly the same trainer to ride on, which has a serial number assigned to it. Foote had to prove her identity, along with her weight and height, and send through videos of her data test to show it was her on the bike putting out her accurate power numbers.
She also has to provide her whereabouts for drug testing purposes during the period in and around the competition.
Foote will be joined by World Tour professional Ella Harris, almost a veteran of Zwift, and Sarah Morrison in the New Zealand team, and she’s mixing her excitement with some caution before the nearly 55-kilometre race.
“I’m very conscious of my expectations of myself. I know that I don’t have the experience the top girls have and I know that I don’t have the watts they have…so it’s a massive step up really,” she says.
“But hopefully it’s part of a stepping stone to getting better and better, and I know I’m going to have to hang on like a pig dog!”
While last year’s race saw Ella Harris dragging herself onto her bike at 2am to compete, the timing is much more civilised in 2022. Foote will be racing soon after 7am on Sunday, which suits her well.
She’ll also have the support of her kids watching on, although she’s not sure how interested they’ll be, as the novelty of seeing Mum go hammer and tongs in the garage has slowly worn off.
“Sometimes they don’t even bother waving through the door before they go off to school. But the other morning Amelia said ‘I did try and wave to you Mum, but you were so focused on your screen’,” she laughs.
*You can watch Sonia Foote and the New Zealand team live on Sunday morning, on the Zwift YouTube channel.
