A CHAMPION cyclist was getting her fellow competitors in a spin after a phenomenal season 15 years ago — just four years after taking up the sport.
Katrina Hair, of Shanks Avenue, smashed the Scottish speed record on her first attempt at track racing when she won the 3k Pursuit Championships at Meadowbank Velodrome in Edinburgh in 2003.
She was also first home in the European Masters Road Race Championships on the Isle of Man in July. Katrina rode for Johnstone Wheelers and had recently moved to Barrhead. 
She said: “The Isle of Man was quite hard work — we were mixed in with men.
“You go up this hill for about nine miles, then straight back down the other side and that’s you finished.
“I have had quite an accelerated run up the levels — it’s been a baptism of fire really.”
That season Katrina, 30, also won the Scottish 10-mile time trial championship, the Scottish Road race championships and competed in the Commonwealth Games in Manchester.
Katrina only got her own bike five years earlier after she enjoyed having a go on her husband George’s.
She said: “My husband used to cycle to work. I got a BMX- then I bought a racing-bike and decided that I wanted to join a club.”
But Katrina decided not to give up her day job as an architect’s assistant for Renfrewshire Council to turn professional.
She said “It’s difficult to compete against girls who get everything paid for. I have just got my old bike.”