Nicole Lynch feels need for speed in World Superbike Championship

She's the "super-coolest" childminder on earth, according to the seven-year-old she takes care of during the week, his four- and one-year-old siblings less aware of what Nicole Lynch gets up to at weekends.

It could all have been quite different. By the time she was nine, Lynch was an All-Ireland champion in ballroom dancing. Now? She rides motorbikes at considerable speed, last weekend becoming the first Irish female rider to compete in the World Superbike Championship when she took part in the European Junior Cup in Spain.

How do you go from being a ballroom dancer to a motorbike racer?

“It’s not something people would associate with me now,” she laughs, her foxtrotting and waltzing days done by the time she was 10. Put it down to a need for speed.

“I literally don’t remember a time in my life when I haven’t been around motorbikes,” says the 24-year-old from Clondalkin in Dublin. Her father Paddy raced and her older brother Dylan has been Irishsidecar racing champion on eight occasions.

Paddock Brats

When she was four, that epic moment arrived: the stabilisers were removed from her bicycle. A week later? “I had my first motorbike.” At four? “At four. I was just riding fast around the fields, falling off and getting back on the bike. Loved it. And when my brother started sidecars I was going to the tracks, watching all the racing, hanging around the paddock – they called us the ‘Paddock Brats’, the kids brought up around the track. It was brilliant, like one big extended family.”

And coming from the family she did, there was never any notion that this motorbike business wasn’t for girls. “Dad brought me up like that, never to conform to ‘girls do this and boys do that’, he always let us do whatever we wanted. So I never really cared if I was up against a girl or boy, so long as I was beating them, whether it was go-karts, football, whatever.”

Still, despite being born in to the sport, Lynch didn’t take it up competitively until she was 22. “I’m a very late starter. The people I’m racing against now have been doing it since they were five or six years old, so it’s a big experience gap and learning curve. But we got a podium in my first year in Ireland, so it went really well. You always want to race against the best, so the opportunity to take part in the World Superbikes was amazing. I was walking around the paddock in Spain just thinking ‘wow’, this is what you dream about.”

Training in Spain went well. She was matching the speed of last year's women's champion Avalon Biddle but she found the race itself tough. "I learnt probably more in Spain than I learnt in the past two years, riding harder than I'd ever had to ride before just to keep up."

The competition runs from April through October with eight rounds all around Europe. Being good enough to compete is only half the battle, the cost of taking part huge – the entry fee alone is €25,000.

“And along with that you have to transport yourself and your mechanic to and from each round, your flights, accommodation, food, hire cars, petrol. So it all really adds up, probably around €50,000 in all. For now we’ve covered the first couple of rounds with the help of some great sponsors, but there’s still a massive chunk that we need to cover.”

Lynch used to work in a Montessori classroom but then took up a childminding position with a family. Around her day job she fits in a taxing fitness regime, 5km runs five mornings a week, and strength and conditioning sessions in the gym three afternoons a week. “Guys are just naturally stronger; as girl, you have to work that little bit harder to have the strength and endurance just to keep up.”

Do you ever feel fear?

“No. I’ve never been afraid because I’ve been around speed for so long. At Aragon I had a big crash at about 100km/h on the first day, a guy accidentally clipped me going into a corner. I hurt my arm but it was okay. The next session I went out and hit the corner harder than ever. You just have to get on with it, you’re there to race, you’re there to go fast, you can’t let a crash set you back. Accidents do happen, but it’s not something you dwell on. I had six crashes last year, the most I’ve ever had is a bruise, I’ve never had a broken bone.”

Very nervous

If she’s unconcerned about injuries, it’s certainly been on her mother’s mind. “She gets very nervous, she only started watching my races recently. She always went to the races but she’d sit in the camper van and read a magazine when I was out. She’d just make sure I was on the starting line and she’d make sure I was there when it finished. But she couldn’t watch.”

Did she ever try to persuade you to go back to ballroom dancing? “I think she knows that would definitely be a waste of breath,” she laughs. “Both my parents are super-proud of where I am. I don’t think they expected it to spiral as much as it has. I said to Dad last weekend, ‘remember when I said I’ll go to world superbikes one day, did you think it would really happen?’ He just laughed and shook his head.”