Brown, who is part of the Australian Road Cycling Team which will be tasked with delivering Amanda Spratt to hopeful glory at the UCI Road World Championships in Austria this Saturday (8pm AEST), started her sporting endeavours in athletics.

“As a kid I was a cross-country runner, where I made the national cross country championships in grade three, and I did athletics through my teen years and into university,” she said.

“A PE teacher at school, Jeff Farnsworth, took me under his wing and trained me for my first national competition. But as I went on I was really riddled with injury and never quite got to where I wanted to be in the sport.

“During that time my dad had been in my ear saying ‘you would probably be a better cyclist and you should try it’.

“I dismissed it and dismissed it until I had had enough of being constantly injured, with one final stress fracture putting me over the edge, and I bought a bike in mid-2015 and I have never looked back.”

The 26-year-old grew up in Camperdown before she moved to Presbyterian Ladies College, a boarding school in Melbourne, when she was 14. 

Brown and her dad, who now lives in Northern Queensland, enjoy riding together when she visits her parents.

“Dad does more mountain biking than road cycling now, but when we are together we get out on the road,” she said. “He is usually trying to compete with me and I think that's where I get my competitive edge from.

“He has always pushed me to be better than I think I am and that has given me a lot of confidence.”

Brown then went on to study international relations and affairs at Melbourne University, where she earned her bachelor degree and honours.  

The 460degrees project manager said the transition from putting on running shoes to jumping on a bike was smooth but she still expected speed humps. 

“Being a runner definitely helped me on a cardiovascular level,” Brown said. “I think when you have been exercising your whole life your body is more attuned to high intensity for a long period of time, which made the transition a bit easier.

“But the muscles you use for cycling are much different to what it is for running and it took me a while to build the strength to be able to push myself on the bike.”

Brown’s cycling career started with St Kilda Cycling Club.

In 2016 she burst onto the domestic cycling scene when she won the Victorian Road Series in her debut year earning her a spot on national tour team, Holden Team Gusto Racing. 

Brown continued her strong form with a consistent debut year on the National Road Series in 2017 before leaping again into the spotlight with an impressive start to 2018 at the National Road Championships in January.

She finished third in the road race, which was won by fellow south-west export and Holden teammate Shannon Malseed, and fourth in the individual time trial against some of Australia’s top professional riders. 

The impressive form continued into the Santos Women’s Tour Down Under as she surged to a third-place finish in a heavily-stacked international field on a hilly and hard fought 122.4-kilometre stage three from the Bend Motorsport Park to Hahndorf in South Australia.

Brown would end up finishing fifth in the overall classification on her second attempt (2017 was her first, where she finished 61st) at the famous Australian world tour event.

Her world in cycling was opened up when she was named the recipient of the Amy Gillett scholarship, an award bestowed upon an Australian cyclist showing promise.

The scholarship landed her a spot on the British professional cycling team Wiggle High5, which saw her participate in La Course by Le Tour de France.

Now the allrounder is preparing to represent Australia in the climber-friendly 156.2-kilometre UCI World Championship road race.

“I would not have dreamed of doing this a year or even six months ago,” Brown said. “I didn’t expect to be named on the Australian team and I was hopeful that I would get selected.”

There have been some ups and downs for Brown, who rides for 15-20 hours a week as part of her training, but it’s not the physical aspect which is the challenge in her adopted sport.

“The hardest part of cycling is the mental game and you have to be really confident technically,” she said. “Having no fear in fast-paced close-quarters with other people has been the hardest challenge to get up to the level I need to be at to race at a high level.

“If I don't have the confidence and I don't give myself a chance, I'll be sitting at the back and miss all the action at the front and end up getting dropped. So I have to just put that all behind me to go forward.”

One thing which has benefitted Brown is a sports psychiatrist to aid her.

“He really helps me to build the mental strength that I need to have to compete in top levels of the sport,” she said.

“It really takes a lot of practice for us to stay strong. One thing that I have always struggled with is say I come down in a crash on a descent.

“I always find it hard to be confident in descending again after a crash and I quite often just go out and try to get a faster time on a familiar descent until I’m comfortable again.

“It’s little techniques like this that are taught to us and that positive mind training helps keep me going at the top of my game.”

Brown already has her eyes set on her road ahead.

“Once I get settled in a world tour team full-time hopefully I can become a GC (general classification) rider one day,” she said.

“Obviously it takes time to get there and I have to do the domestic duties before I can take my turn in the limelight.”

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