Now this is scary!
Traipsing through my photos and inspired by a new Facebook group which enables old cyclists to download ancient shots of themselves and others in their prime as racing cyclists, I have unearthed yet another stunner from my vault.
I don’t think I am even in my prime in this photo. In fact, I’m not sure if I ever reached my prime!
I do know it was taken at Queanbeyan Park and if you squint you may be able to make out the tennis courts next to the car park behind me.
When was it taken? I don’t know but I can hazard a guess that it was probably the mid-1980’s, judging from my Duegi shoes, notable in this photo for being worn without socks as was the fashion of the day and a leather helmet which I actually don’t ever remember wearing in a race but as it is on my head it must have been with me through a few starts on the road and track. Also, I am obviously very young so it doesn’t take a genius to figure out I am probably sixteen or so when this image was shot.
I can’t remember the photo being taken but as it looks posed and formal I can only hazard a guess that the Queanbeyan Age had found a 3cm by 3cm space deep in the bowels of their paper to write something about local bike racing. Anthony O’Connor, a stalwart of local cycling who, as I write is riding to Queensland, lived in Queanbeyan at the time and would try to keep cycling in the spotlight by stirring up the local media occasionally and try to get our mugs in the local rag.
Fellows like Anthony are the backbone of Australian cycling. He has never received anything from the sport for all the love and attention he has given it yet he wheels himself out year after year, training, racing and participating any way he can. He also pays enormous amounts of money for licensing fees every year which enables him to race and more importantly, be covered by insurance but to me he is a champion of the sport, as big as any of the elite riders we have now or ever. Without the likes of “Sluggo” as he is known, the sport wouldn’t exist. May he ride on forever and day.
In those distant days past I had a Professional license even though at fifteen years old I was underage. My father had raced with the professional body from the time he was a boy and his son was certainly never going to be a “lilywhite” as long as he had anything to do with it!
While the lure of the Olympic Games had always been strong in Australia, there was also for many years a very competitive Professional Association which had a philosophy of providing racing for cyclists as opposed to the amateur ideology of finding elite cyclists to compete at an elite level and damn the rest!
Consequently, “professional” cycling flourished despite 95% percent of it’s practitioners barely being professional at all. And the amateurs were our deadly enemies!
Of course it is all sweet and light nowadays as the two bodies combined in the early 1990’s much to the disgust of many old professional riders. Unfortunately many hangovers still exist from the days of the amateur body and elite cycling is seen to be far more important than the welfare of the average rider who props up the sport every year at a local level.
In the mid-1980’s we were still in the sweet spot where we slagged off at amateurs and justified ourselves by claiming we were the superior body for serious domestic cycling. In many ways it was a better system than what exists today but the days of glorious Australian Professional cycling have gone, never to return.
I believe there is still some racing done at Queanbeyan Park through the summer months. The Canberra Veterans Club has a small cadre of regular track riders who attend on Thursday nights for some racing but other than that, cricket and Aussie Rules dominate the ground. I’m surprised the council still spend money on it and haven’t ripped it up!
In the 1980’s we would train on Tuesday’s and race on Thursdays, often mixing with the despised amateurs and beating them and their egos on a good many occasions.
Track racing was where my future lay in the sport but alas, work intervened and I could never get to the track after I began my employment and would always race carnivals well and truly underdone as a result.
Track racing today is in a sad state of decline and looking at “The Cycling Scrapbook” photos on Facebook and reliving the glory days of track racing in this country has a melancholy air about it. Maybe a canny promoter will rescue the scene before it is too late. But I doubt it. All the young stars of today want to be Cadel Evans, not Sid Patterson.
And so I will sign off for today with hazy memories of my sporting feats of days gone by still swirling in my head and wish you all the best for the rest of the day.
Take care.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 