23rd Cycle Messenger World Championships

There are many fantastic ways for cyclists to celebrate Easter — if celebrate is the correct verb. After all, it’s not really lighthearted stuff, this Christian ultra-long weekend that honours backstabbing friends, an unjust legal system, and an incredible comeback that makes even Lance Armstrong’s 2009 Tour de France podium—the one where he “absolutely [did] not” dope—seem fairly unimpressive.


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Bikes Of The 2015 Corporate Triathlon

In the world of pseudo-competitive sports-based marketing, there are few events more impressive than the wonder of Corporate Triathlon. Targeting the corporate sector is an ingenious way for event organisers to capitalise on the holy trilogy of event promotion—exorbitant entry fees, minimal prizes and mass participation.

Bikes And Equipment Of The 2015 Herald Sun Tour Commuter Cup Prologue

After the success of last year’s innovative Commuter Cup prologue time-trial, the Herald Sun Tour* began yesterday with a similar race through the busy peak-hour streets of Melbourne’s CBD. A prologue time-trial is always a great place to get behind the scenes with the professional teams for a sneaky look at their individual equipment choices. Riders can opt for very different strategies when it comes to posting the fastest time against the clock and the short length of the prologue course means that nosy spectators can get a good look at it all.

Peak Clash Weekend

The unprecedented quantity of cycling events offered in Australia last weekend represented what 2013 Tour Divide runner-up (and potato cake connoisseur) Jesse Carlsson dubbed “peak clash weekend.”

For race organisers, it represented the culmination of more than 12 months worth of careful planning and stakeholder engagement, resulting in a weekend where cycling, in many different forms, was celebrated on a grand, albeit very diluted, scale.

In Recent Proposals: International Connections, Saddle Sponsorship and the First Person Race Report

*** NEWSFLASH *** 
*** SENSITIVE COMMENTS REMOVED ***

Today it was respectfully requested by parties concerned with this post (originally published Saturday 27th September 2014) for private conversation content to be removed. I have been advised that the Facebook Messenger conversation in question was not for public consumption—which I found a little confusing.

Socks & Sandals: The Fashion Faux Pas Bringing Bad Taste To Mountain Biking

As the old saying goes, ‘Before you judge someone, walk a mile in their shoes’. But what if that person is a cyclist and what if they’re wearing socks and sandals? In this interview from 2013, 4Shaw Agencies founder Dion Shaw had this to say about the common fashion faux pas: ‘[They are] one of my biggest hates. I actually won’t say what I think of them. Probably offend someone I think.’ This comes as a very powerful statement from somebody so heavily invested in the sock game.

Audience Participation In Professional Cycling

It seems like each year that Grand Tour season rolls around the crowds lining the roads get bigger. But not just bigger – more rowdy, more intoxicated, more passionate, more exuberant. More naked.

Every time there’s a mountain top finish, spectators inevitably end up spilling out across the road, excitedly cheering on the riders, waving flags and generally getting in the way.

MTBing And The Economic Benefits Of Drought

The most recent drought to ravage south eastern Australia lasted from 1995 through to 2010 with the last areas not officially being declared drought-free until 2012. Needless to say, this was a very difficult time, particularly for Australia’s agricultural industry. But for many mountain bikers, this period is quite fondly remembered as the “golden age” of off-road racing.

The Solitary Pleasures Of Unsupported Bikepacking

The sport of Unsupported Bikepacking is building in popularity. There are now a good number of (mostly unofficial) races on almost every continent – I’m yet to hear of any organised races in Antarctica, but it wouldn’t surprise me if someone has something in mind. There have already been three successful Antarctic bikepacking expeditions in the last year.

Bikepacking events challenge riders to navigate a set course, without any outside assistance, that often takes multiple days, weeks or even months.

2014 MTB National Championships Predictions

A lot of people don’t regard this blog as a serious, informative and reputable source for cycling news – or as it more commonly known these days, Cyclingnews.com.

But to me, this seems unfair. In the past year alone there have been stories about racing:

• Desert Racing, the Tour Divide, Tour Down Under and the Herald-Sun Tour 

Desert Racing

When you think of desert races, it’s not usually those of the road cycling variety that come to mind. The Paris-Dakar Rally is one of the most famous events that, up until 2008, traversed an off-road route from Paris to Dakar, the capital of Senegal. While this race is contested by cars, trucks and motorcycles, interestingly, it is also run by the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), who are the organisers behind road cycling events including the Tour de France, Vuelta a España and Paris-Nice, among others.

2014 Herald Sun Tour: Commuter Cup Prologue

The Herald Sun Tour has not only had a full facelift, but also some major reconstructive surgery over the last few years. Traditionally held in October (during the Melbourne spring), the race was moved to February in 2013, presumably so it could piggy back off of the Lunar New Year Celebrations that are popular in Melbourne at this time.

Interview with Neil van der Ploeg from the Tour Down Under

After recent cuts slashed The Private Cyclist’s travel budget, the following interview with UCI WorldTour breakaway participating cyclist (and Backgammon enthusiast) Neil van der Ploeg had to be carried out by telephone. What follows is a fairly unfaithful recreation of something somewhat resembling the actual conversation.*

*No guarantee of accuracy, fact-checking or reliability of sources should be assumed.

Eat, Sleep, Ride, Repeat - Jesse Carlsson Talks Bikepacking & The Tour Divide

Jesse Carlsson raced to 2nd place in the 2013 Tour Divide unsupported bikepacking race. But that was nothing compared with this raft of gruelling questions.

Eat, Sleep, Ride, Repeat - Jesse Carlsson Talks Bikepacking (Teaser)

Jesse Carlsson raced to 2nd place in the 2013 Tour Divide unsupported bikepacking race. But that was nothing compared with this raft of gruelling questions. Have a look at this teaser and stay tuned for the full video coming soon.

ABC Radio Tour de France Preview

The Private Cyclist recently made an appearance on ABC Radio Perth for a Tour de France preview segment. This is some serious mainstream exposure which, I guess, means that I’ve finally “made it” as they say in “the industry” and can now just sit back and wait for the lucrative journalistic offers to start flooding in.

Le Tour de France - The Racism That Stops a Nation

First published in 2011, this article is no less relevant today as it highlights the racism that exists in the  world of professional road cycling, in particular the Grand Tours like the upcoming Tour de France...

Classification Clarification at the Giro d'Italia

For many Melbourne cycling enthusiasts, a typical cold and wet morning in the middle of May might start out something like this…

After arriving at the office, the first thing on the agenda (after re-holstering your photo ID lanyard) is to check the overnight results from the Giro d’Italia. While you were sound asleep, dreaming about your next promotion, sales bonus or that cute new girl in marketing, the pro-cycling peloton were racing across a picturesque Italian countryside, possibly bathed in sunshine, but hopefully sliding around on slick, wet roads for your amusement.

How To Guide: Running A Successful Mountain Bike Event

In late 2012, the Team Mount Beauty Mountain Bike Club hadn’t even planned to host a 6-hour race in 2013. Then enter Turi Berg, a TMB committee member and recently settled Mount Beauty resident (apparently it takes 20 years to call yourself a local). Skip forward to April 2013 and the Mount Beauty 6-hour Race (part of the Victorian Enduro Series) went off without a hitch under blue skies, on great trails, with great racing and an excellent atmosphere that people are still talking about, even days later – which in this age of online social media is something to be quite proud of.

Getting Lean - A Guide to Being a Skinny Cyclist

As a competitive cyclist, whether it be on the road or off-road, there is a huge benefit in minimising your body weight.
The basic theory goes something like this:

If you need to race up hills, then Science tells us that the most important metric for your performance is the ratio of your power output to your overall weight.