History

As somebody who has been in and around bicycles, cycle racing and the bicycle industry for around 60 of my 68 years, it was suggested that perhaps I should enlighten you, the reader, wherever you may be, as to my cycling history.

My first job in the bicycle industry was working on the assembly line at Bennett and Woods' Redfern (Sydney) factory in early 1961. Well known industry identity, the late Harry Bartrop, was the manager at the time and my job was to install the caliper brakes, mudguards and on the ladies bikes, the dress nets, there was a choice of three colours on standard bikes, black, red and blue. Any order that came through for a different colour cost extra!

Earlier as a teenager, in Bristol, England, I enjoyed the pastimes of both Youth Hostelling around South Western England and Wales on my bike and racing as a member of Velo Club Bristol.

To aid my French studies(in theory of course), I eagerly bought the sepia or green coloured issues of the weekly Miroir du Cyclisme and was able to read of the exploits of Jean Robic, Andre Darrigade, Jacques Anquetil, Brian Robinson and Shay Elliot among many others. During the Tour de France it came out three times a week!

Emigrating to Australia in late 1959, shortly before my 18th birthday, working on a dairy farm near Mooroopna (Victoria) the local bike shop in Shepparton organised a track bike for me to try out at the local carnival and in my first attempt at Aussie track cycling a bloke called Sid Patterson was off scratch in my wheelrace heat and nearly blew me off my bike when he went past!

Moving to Sydney and that first job in the bike industry, I joined Campsie CC which was sponsored by Kevin Thompson and Frejus bikes so my next foray into the bicycle industry was in 1961 working for this importing icon,  in his Cleveland St (Redfern) bike shop which doubled as an importing business as well.

That was in the days of Atom Imports being run by Mr and Mrs Guerry Senior and based on the third floor at Dakin House in Rawson Place, next door to Sydney's Central Railway Station.

The Guerry's coming from New Caledonia concentrated on importing French P&A, while Kevin with a penchant for everything Italian imported Italian P&A, indeed that could have been in part because the owner of the Italian restaurant next door to Kevin's shop was none other than Gino Bambagiotti!

In 1963 I joined the Speedwell Cycles division of General Accessories at their Rhodes Head Office, the company was then part of the Phillips empire and as their northern NSW country representative covered the state from Cootamundra in the south to Ballina and Nyngan in the north, averaging 1600km a week. 

This was back in the days of many Australian country roads being dirt, or the main roads having the narrow central strip of macadamised roadway with deep ruts either side. Every three weeks it was the practice to change the left hand tyres over with the right hand to try and even up the wear and tear.

Following a period in the Australian Post Office based in the Upper Hunter of NSW in which I participated in road racing at both Muswellbrook and Newcastle, track racing mainly at the country shows where we raced on the trotting tracks, establishing the Scone Cycle Club and being the prime mover in the renovations to the Muswellbrook Velodrome through a Federal Government scheme, the field of Journalism beckoned.

A short cadetship at the Scone Advocate was followed over the next few years with stints at the Cessnock Eagle, where I founded the Coalfields Cycling Club, and the Upper Hunter News at Muswellbrook.

During this time I also did radio and television works as an Upper Hunter area correspondent for the ABC and NBN Channel 3.

PR and Promotional work with Wyndham Estate, which included two years as the major sponsor of the Tour of the Hunter, was followed by a move to Sydney and after a short stint as a sub editor at the St George Leader, I joined the racing desk on the Daily Telegraph and was then seconded to The Australian.  

In addition to working on the racing desk I also covered a number of secondary sports such as cycling, the 18Footers, water skiing and the Sydney Football League competition.

In those days international communication wasn't instant like it is today, no emails, telegrams were about as instant as it could get.

In the early days of Phil Anderson's exploits in the Tour de France, having spoken to his mother, Anne Gray, who gave me the phone numbers of his hotels where he would be staying and the rough time he would be there, I would organise to get up early in the morning, go into New Ltd's headquarters to talk to Phil in his hotel after each stage, then the story would appear in the following morning's sports pages of the Australian.

A far cry from today's instant news coverage. One of my work colleagues was a young bloke keen to tap into the emerging field of triathlon named Rupert Guinness, we would speak at length about cycling before he decided to try his hand in Europe. I also covered the first of the Commonwealth Bank Cycling Classics, flying into Brisbane the day after the Commonwealth Games finished, for the News Limited Sydney based papers.

Turning my hand to publishing, Australasian Cycling, a monthly newspaper on all forms of cycle racing, evolving into Australasian Cycling and Triathlon News, as the new sport took hold in Australia, saw me working nights in the photolab at News Limited and running the magazine during the day time.

I guess I was a familiar figure at most major cycling events over the next few years, pioneering photographing events from the back of a motorbike, getting right into the midst of the racing action.

Officialdom had difficulty at times coping with this radical move, it wasn't covered in the rules and several times race referees tried to use their vehicle to obstruct the motorbike working at such close quarters.

Just to give you an idea of what was involved in running a one-man business chasing bicycle racing stories in a country as big as Australia, one of my biggest weekends saw me arrive in Grafton on the Friday afternoon to cover the amateur Grafton to Inverell on the Saturday which finished around 3pm, I got my interviews and the race committee had a taxi waiting for me.

The only plane that could get me back to Sydney that evening was due in at Armidale 90 minutes later, as the taxi drove over the hill into Armidale from the north, the plane was landing at the airport in the south, with the township in the valley in between.

Needless to say I caught the plane, arrived back in Sydney, went to News Ltd, developed film, did the race stories for various papers and then early next morning I was flying out of Sydney en route for Perth, where, that Sunday afternoon, I covered the Professional Criterium Championships at Midlands prior to the start of the Griffin Tour of Western Australia.

 I had been provided with an early laptop as part of News Ltd's push into technology, so I became the centre of attention on the flight over with people coming to look at this bloke in economy class tapping away on a computer sitting on his lap!

In 1990 I went to Japan for the World Cycling Championships, the road racing was at Utsonomiya and the track in a newly built indoor keirin track at Maebashi, becoming the first Australian cycling journalist to visit the Shimano Osaka Headquarters while stationed in Japan and in 1992 was at the Auckland Commonwealth Games covering both cycling and triathlon events.

Selling the consumer magazine to finalise a partnership which had gone sour, I worked for the new owners for six months, then the bicycle trade asked me to establish a trade publication filling the void following the exit of Warren Salomon's quarterly trade newsletter, Bicycle Industry News came into being.

That was followed by the industry's first annual Directory, regarded by most as the industry "Bible". During my years as the publisher, I was the first Australian cycling journalist to visit Interbike, I also visited its short lived competitor at Las Vegas and the Canadian Bike Show in Toronto and on the same trip the World MTB Championships in Vails, Colorado.

I was also the first to visit the New Zealand bicycle industry trade shows and was among trade journalists invited to Taipei to look at the local industry and the annual Taipei Bicycle Show.

The experiences gained over five decades of involvement in one way or another with most forms of bike racing, bike touring, bike advocacy and the bicycle industry will, I am sure, be reflected in the stories you will be seeing on this comecyclingwithme.com. website.

I hope you get as much enjoyment out of reading the stories as I will have had putting them together!

Join with me in the experience.