New cycling team hits the road

You’d be forgiven for thinking that all the news around cycling was doom and gloom these days, with doping allegations seemingly popping up every other week. However the future has never looked brighter for the riders of the new University of Melbourne cycling team.

‘Team UB’ (Uni Bicycles) has had a successful first year competing across Cycle Sport Victoria races all around the state, including wins in both the Mount Baw Baw and Mount Buller Classics. Throw in a strong showing at the Melbourne to Warrnambool Classic – the second longest one-day race in the world at 264 kilometres – as well as numerous top 10 finishes, and Team UB are firmly on the cycling map. 

“The performance has been really, really good, we didn’t really expect to do as well as we did,” says John Prince, Director Sportif for the team, a role that covers mentoring, coaching, management and sponsor liaison. 

“We’ve got a really young team too – most of our riders have only been on a bike one or two years, with our longest being three years.“

Perhaps we should have seen the results coming, as the University has always had a keen cycling interest among its students. The University has won 10 of the past 11 university championships in the sport and counts science student Lachie Norris (5th, Australian Road Championship and former Australian U23 Mountain Bike Champion) and recent law graduate Lisa Jacobs (VIS cyclists and winner, National Cyclo-Cross Series Championships) among its most notable professional riders.

While the Melbourne University Cycling Club has been a fixture on campus for years now, the race team fills a niche that allows elite under-23 riders who are either current students or alumni to get involved in regular competition. The team also ties in with MU Sport’s commitment to the Elite Athlete Friendly University status the campus holds, courtesy of the Federal Government.

For Mr Prince though, the team is more than just about getting race results. 

“We’ve tried as much as possible to give all the riders the necessary tools to go on and perform well in a fully professional team, for this to be a stepping stone, so if a team does come calling, they’re ready to go.

“Of course, we’d love to keep them, but at the same time we don’t want to hold them back. We know we’re up against it with other teams having bigger budgets and more sponsors, even more so given the sponsorship market has tightened up since the Lance Armstrong decision – companies don’t want to be on jerseys any more.”

That’s not to say the club has no support, with bike manufacturer Giant, supplement supplier clothing specialists Torq Australia and clothing specialists Nemisis among those on board, with Prince’s own 35 years in the industry and shop on campus assisting in making connections. However, sponsors are an important component to the team, and all riders are given charge of managing at least one sponsor relationship.

Team Captain and Team Manager Jason Stirling says the response from other teams on the circuit in this first full year of competition has been positive. 

“I think the other teams have been pleasantly surprised with our professionalism for our first real crack at significant competition.

“It’s great too to give other riders around the University the opportunity to race for their own team, there’s something more professional to aspire to. There’s a big cycling community here, both students and alumni, so we’ve had plenty of interest from people wanting to join the team.”

The engineering student – who is developing his own mapping website for cycling, the Cycling Atlas Project - says while he’s only a recent arrival to the cycling scene, he’s loving the experience. 

“I’ve only been riding for three years, and I only came to the sport as I suffered lots of injuries playing football and I needed to spend a bit of time on the bike to recover. It just went from there.

Mr Prince says despite all the recent controversies in the sport, riding is still in good shape, and the team is only going to grow in the coming years. 

“We had between eight and 10 riders this year, and we’re wanting to get upwards of 15 for 2013, with nine guys already committed. We’d really love to get some women on the team as well to compete in the women’s events, so that’s a big aim for us.

Elite riders interested in joining the cycling team should contact Sport Development Manager Rod Warnecke (rod.warnecke@unimelb.edu.au)

www.sport.unimelb.edu.au