While riding along a dirt trail to piano lessons as a young girl, Alyssa Rogan fell under the spell of a sport that was in its modern-era infancy.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Years later, in the early '90s, she was among the first charge of mountain biking enthusiasts in Australia - the sensory overload she experienced riding on dirt trails as a child stronger than ever.
Read also:
This Tamworth-based married mother of two young girls, whom she hopes become just as enchanted with the sport as her, is on a mission that she carries out with a restrained fervour.
At the vanguard of Tamworth Mountain Bikers' evolution, and as a lifelong mountain biking enthusiast, she feels compelled to bang the drum and espouse the benefits of the sport to others: it is a calling.
"It's a very sensory experience on a bike compared to a car: you can smell, you can feel the air, you can see more things," said the occupational therapist, who assists people with spinal-cord injuries.
"And I think it hit me really early [in life]. And every time I get on a bike I have that same experience."
Rogan insists she is not a natural leader - yet she ascended to TMB's presidency and is steering what she says is a transformative period in the organisation's history (last week it launched its first adaptive track, with two more stages of the project planned).
"I'm not a natural leader: it's not a hat that I enjoy, really ... But I see the vision. I see where mountain biking can take a person and a community - and I really believe in it's value."
For someone not born to lead, Rogan is astute enough to understand that she is only as good as the people she works with. And she is decent enough to honour their contributions.
"You've gotta be able to gather people together to build something like this [the adaptive track]." She added: "You need everybody's skill set [to flourish].
"And we're very lucky, on our committee, to have the visionaries, the doers, the people who are happy to pitch in and volunteer their time to build tracks - and to build a community, really.
"So, I wasn't so much interested into getting into admin; I was more interested in growing the sport that I really passionately believe everybody can do - and it's a joyous experience."
Another joyous experience for Rogan - an accomplished endurance rider now eyeing shorter races in her advancing years - has been to watch female participation in mountain biking grow.
"I just love the community of female cyclists at the moment: it's just explosive in Australia."
