Interview with Dave McKenzie

This episode of the Get Fast podcast is brought to you by Trivalo Coaching, where we help triathletes and cyclists like you train smarter to race faster. You are joined, as always, by your host, Australian Ironman champion Jared Donnelly. And I am Jordan Donnelly. On today's episode, we have a very special guest that we are. We're really excited to chat to a true Aussie cycling legend, someone that's very well known in the sport. And we were very grateful that he gave up his time to chat to us. And that is ex pro cyclist and current SBS commentator Dave McKenzie. He was a pro for many years and then has spent the last decade or so being one of the expert commentators on sbs. You all would have heard his voice throughout the Tour de France or any other big races, on TV last week at the Australian road race titles. He is also a coach, he runs cycling tours, and he's just quite a humble person. And we really enjoyed that part of the chat where he spoke about some of his best moments in his career in a really humble way.

It was interesting, wasn't it, Jordan? He kind of was a little bit uncomfortable talking about himself, but once we got him going, it was great to get some insights into his experiences as a pro cyclist. And, you know, he was at the. At the top of the tree winning a stage of the Giro and winning a national Australian title, which is, you know, I think, become more prestigious now as the years have gone on. And. And he's a very humble guy and not big on promoting himself, but boy, he's achieved a lot on his journey and his insights as a commentator, he's so. He's got a really good voice to listen to and he understands what's happening in the race. And it was really intriguing interview and I thoroughly enjoyed it. He had a lot of good things to say, and I really enjoyed his take on the future of cycling and where he thinks it's going and, and how important grassroots cycling is to the sport. And there's so many good things we got across today, so I hope you enjoy it.

Yeah, absolutely. So, without further ado, here is the episode with Dave McKenzie. Okay, we've got Aussie cycling legend Dave McKenzie on the line with us. Dave, thanks so much for joining us on the podcast.

Pleasure, pleasure, guys.

We saw you last week, and I want to start on this note at the National Road Series, and you were there, impressively, not just for all the elite categories, but you and yourself. And Matt Keenan, the SPS team was commentating every single category from the Wednesday through to the Sunday. And I just thought that was absolutely amazing that every single event, the time trials, the team time trials, every single category all the way through to Sunday in the elite category, you did an amazing job just commentating all day and I think that really shows your love for the sport. So the first question I want to ask is, what does the sport of cycling mean to you?

Good question. Well, first, if I'll just go to your point on the National Champs, I think that was the. Well, it was the second live venue I've done in 12 months. As we all know, with COVID all live events were cancelled. So it was sort of weird hearing the sound of my own voice out loud, I must say. But no, look, I think it's a tough one to answer because I can give a really long answer because I think it deserves a long answer. But I guess to sum it up, it's freedom. It is passion, absolute passion. I mean, I was born sort of in a cycling family. My father raced. I've got an older brother who was a pretty good cyclist as well. So I think it's not until you realize when you retire actually how much you love the sport, you love it absolutely when you're competing. But for me, I thought I'd get out of cycling completely when I retired. And it wasn't until sort of a year after when I realized actually I wanted to stay involved. And it was, you know, I've done a 20 year apprenticeship in the sport, so. And at that point I sort of thought, well, there's not much else. I know what I want to do, so this will do for now.

It's interesting, isn't it, because when did you actually realize when you're coming to the end of your career that, okay, I'm going to have to stop being a professional, what am I going to do next? Was that a year of wondering where's the direction I'm going to go?

Yeah, that's a good question. And I think it's a question. Well, not just for me. I mean, I'm well and truly past that sort of bubble of retirement, but for a lot of athletes, as we know, not just cyclists who sort of engross themselves in this sport, it can be really tough. And I had a year of sort of probably, I won't lie, it was pretty tough. I bombed out of year 12, I finished year 12, but I wasn't very good at high school and my sole focus was to be a pro cyclist. I sort of fulfilled that dream to a degree, but I certainly didn't make millions of dollars that I wouldn't have to work again. And so when I retired, I actually, I played golf for about six months, for about four days a week. And this is a true story. And it wasn't until about nine months into retirement my wife said to me, okay, one day she said, are you just going to play golf for the next however long? Because at some point you've got to get your life in order. So she gave me a good kick up the butt, which I deserved. And I actually went and worked in a bike shop and I was building bikes for about three months and a sort of a sponsor friend in Melbourne and it was the best thing I ever did because it really grounded me. It took me back to my absolute roots of sort of cycling and then I started coaching out of that. And then I found a pathway for myself and through that three month period I thought that I was going to get out of cycling. And I went to a few of my contacts and tried to get out of cycling and they all said to me, we'll give you a job, but you're crazy. You're leaving a sport that you've got all this knowledge in. And so it sort of took some close friends to actually, I guess help me decide on my direction. But yeah, it's tricky and you know, it's the age old thing, isn't it? We say any sports person needs to have a good group of sort of peers around them, whether it be role models, mentors or whatever. And inadvertently I had that. And I hadn't reached out to those people much throughout my career. Probably it wasn't until the end of my career then I suddenly sort of went, whoa, hang on, that happened quickly. Fifteen years has just flown and now what, six? So. But yeah, I was fortunate. I had a lot of good people around me.

It does make a difference. When you've got a good network of friends who can tell you the truth, that might be not what you want to hear, isn't it?

Yeah, absolutely. And yeah, that's right. And I mean, luckily for me, the truth was, it was a good truth. You know, they were telling me, stay in the sport, you know, there's a lot you can give. And I was fortunate because I retired in 05. There weren't too many sort of cycling coaches around at that time. There was a few, but privately there weren't too many, certainly in Melbourne. And I sort of had to, you know, I had the pick of about 5,000 cyclists riding up and down Beach Road at that point. And I'm Sort of not joking. It was. There really weren't too many, so. And I wasn't really interested in coaching elite athletes. I was into it, but it wasn't sort of what I was focusing on. So I was really lucky. I sort of created a business and I loved it for about, you know, six or seven years.

Yeah. What stage did that change to getting into the media and into commentary and that direction? Was that. Was that something that you eased into, or was it something that just came up and the opportunity arose for you?

Yeah, the opportunity arose. I think if I go back to when I first retired, I didn't absolutely. I did not have media or TV on my radar at all, saying that in my last year or two racing, a couple of producers that were showing cycling highlights at races in Australia, they'd sort of miked me up during a couple of races and got me to talk, like the Bay Crit series, stuff like that. They tried, and it was actually pretty innovative. Cause that was back in about 2008, 2002, 2003. And so I'd sort of dabbled in it without realizing it. And the producer at the time said, mate, you're pretty good at this. You need to. You've got a future in this when you retire. But, you know, as we all know, there wasn't much live cycling on TV. And it was. It was 2007, in fact. So I'd had a year out playing golf and I hadn't lowered my handicap, by the way. I was a lousy golfer.

That was a question I was going to ask you, is, what did you get your handicap?

Let's not go there. Let's just not go there. There's plenty of bunkers, I know that much. But, no, it was.07, which is hard to believe, but that was the first year the Tour de France was shown live every day in Australia. And Mike Tomilaris, I'd known him from interviewing me in my racing days, and I told him I was going to be at the Tour, and he said, mate, I need someone at the end of each stage to talk. And you can you come on for a week or so? And so I did it for a week and that was it. I fell in love with it. I just thought, how good is this, you know, getting paid to speak about a sport you love? I thought, this is ridiculous. Why didn't I think of this sort of sooner? And it just sort of. But even then, honestly, even then, I didn't think 14 years later I'd be, you know, it really is My main form of income now, and it's such a great job and we've got a great bunch of people that we work with. And so I'm really fortunate and I will say I really do not take it for granted.

It is fantastic that you've got such a great relationship with Mike Tamalaris and Robbie and Matt and Brydie and the whole crew in there. It comes across to the listeners as, you know, people really know and are knowledgeable about what's happening in the Pelo and, you know, to have a guy like you and Robbie and to a certain extent, variety in her racing career, you know, the knowledge that the listeners are getting, the insights you're giving and what the cyclists are feeling and doing and reacting and the director. Sport is information. You know, we were so used to listening to the European commentators. It's so good to have you guys now just coming from an Australian point of view, you know, I don't know if you realize that that's what's happening, but it is super special for.

Yeah, yeah, no, thanks. And we, I guess probably all of us, we owe our credit, honestly, to probably our executive producer at sbs and there's other people that are behind the scenes. I won't mention them, but they realize that. And SBS as a network have actually really back cycling, as we know, since they got the Tour de France. But they've absolutely committed and, you know, half jokingly, I say, thankfully they lost the soccer and thankfully they've lost most of the tennis because now cycling is a big priority. So. Which helps people like me. But look, in all seriousness, we have a fantastic team behind the scenes who back us in and, you know, we've learned over the years on the job and I've been fortunate that I've learned from really good people. And when I've made mistakes, they haven't. They haven't flicked me. They've said, you know, just improve this a little bit, improve here. And you. Do you learn. And if you're. If you've got the ability to learn, then, yeah, you can have a career in it. Yeah.

And we did sort of jump straight into your career and I kind of like to trace back. Normally we would do it the other way and find out a little bit about your history, but, you know, it's probably most people, it's well known your cycling prowess and I'd like to touch on that a little bit. But the main thing I like to find out is, you know, obviously you said your family had a passion. You know, your brother was A good cyclist, your dad. Did you fall in love with it straight away? Is that something you just. Was it because the family was doing it, you were going to do it, or did you actually say no? I really like. I really like this cycling sport.

Yeah. I mean, yes, 100%. I was going to bike races. When I was, you know, old enough to go at the age of four, I was going to bike races and I was mesmerized by it, whether it be, you know, I grew up in Ballarat and then sort of later on, high school using Shepparton. But I remember going to the Melbourne to Ballarat Handicap Race, you know, in the middle of June when it's freezing cold, standing out on the main road, coming into Ballarat and watching. I think I was. Watched Dean woods come in, you know, as a 17 year old. He was a junior world champion at the time.

Olympian, yeah.

And he crossed the line and they never caught the winners, but he got fastest time. And his brother was there sort of looking after him. And they had one of those like a Sandman, a panel van, and they had the back open and Dean lied back in the back of the van and his brother was massaging him and I was just like, wow, well, this is amazing. You know, this sport's incredible. So I just, you know, I'm not joking. That's, that's, that's my first sort of impressions of, you know, falling in love with the sport. Now we laugh at that stuff and say, my God, you know, but that's what the sport was then. And I just couldn't wait, you know, so that all these guys along the way, you know, Dean woods and I mean, some of these guys you may or may not know of, Eddie Salas, Olympians, Stephen Fairless was a. Was a guy from Shepparton and there's a great little dock on him. But they all inspired me, you know. And then as I knew more, Phil Anderson was a massive, massive sort of hero of mine. And still he's. Phil's such a humble sort of great guy. And so, yeah, I just couldn't wait to get to Europe.

There's certainly some trailblazers who came before you, but you were very early on. And as it, I suppose. Did you realize you had talent, Dave, or did it take. Were you successful as a junior?

Yeah, no, I knew I had talent. Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking myself up, but I started to be really competitive in under 16s, under 18s, or juniors. And then those days you went into amateur ranks. So There was no under 23s, so I was always really high state level and then I slowly pushed my way into national level. So, you know, getting medals at national champs at junior level, but you never know how good you're going to be really. When you, when you, when my mindset was to be in Europe, you don't know. And then it's not until you get off a plane in Europe and you ride your first race and you go, okay, well, it's. I've just gone from under tens, you know, I've gone from under tens afl to ifl. That's, that's. That was the gap back then.

Yeah.

And so, yeah, that was a. I knew I was pretty good in Australia, but when you get to Europe, it's.

How old, how old were you when you made that decision to. I'm going to go to Europe and see, see how Good I am.

Oh, 10.

Yep. And when you did it, how old were you?

I was 17. 18. I was 18. I went to the Junior Worlds as an 18 year old and completely, completely got my butt kicked, like, completely. I rode the road race and the teams time trial and I think I sat on the team's time trial guys, my teammates, by the way, one of them was Matt White. Nathan o' Neill was another one. Two guys that I raced with and went on had good pro careers. I think I pulled one turn at the start and I sat on them for about 50 kilometres and I pulled a turn with about 15k to go and I tried to get on and I got dropped. That was, that was, that was where I was at, you know, at. Well, I was really overwrought, actually. Yeah. But I remember coming home thinking, okay, I'm going to come back next year and I'm going to improve a little bit. And so, yeah, it was a real, it was a journey for me. It wasn't, it wasn't the Robby McKeown journey where Robbie just excelled. You know, he was destined for greatness and now we know that obviously he was a superstar and Robbie. And I say, I use Robbie as an example because we sort of grew up as 18 year olds and he's a couple of years older than me, but up until 23, racing together, national team, national races, and then we went to Europe and he just excelled. So I knew my journey, if I wanted to make it, was going to be a long, hard one.

Yeah. Was that a turning point? Going to those world titles and getting your butt kicked and then saying, right, you've got a choice here, haven' I can actually raise my level or I can just stay home and be a good national rider. Is that a decision that you came to?

Yeah. Yes, it was, but it was probably more. I did the Worlds two years later as an amateur in Italy and I went about 10 laps of the 14 lap circuit and that was more of a sort of light bulb moment in my head. And I remember the day after the road race, I was literally floating around in the ocean thinking, gee, this is beautiful. And it was August, so it was, you know, middle of summer, and I thought, I've got to. I want to do this. I want to do this as a living, I want to do it as a sport. And I was, I was. I'm probably a bit of a gypsy at heart, too. I love the travel and I love the history and culture of Europe and I've loved it more and more each year I go back. So I was always, you know, part of the battle for any athlete, or certainly cyclists, is that culture shock, the physical aspect of being a Pro, that's only 50% of the battle. So I was in love with Europe and I just wanted to get back. So it was a bit of both, actually.

And did you set yourself up in an invited team? How did you get yourself back and did you land in Belgium? Where did you land and how did that process start?

Yeah, I mean, we were lucky at that time in our era, the national team, the state teams were just getting funding. So the Victorian Institute of Sport, NSWISS and SASE and all these state institutes, they actually were just founded in about 1993, I think it was. So by the time I went to Europe for the second time in 94, the states had a bit of a pathway, international team, if you were good enough. So I made the national team. We had an East German coach, Heiko Salzviedel. We spent a big chunk of time in Germany racing a lot of the German tours, so we were well looked after, you know, and being around a national team, it was just like going away with a bunch of your best mates and, yeah, some fantastic memories. We got our butt kicked most of the time, but we actually did punch above our weight, you know, with guys like Robbie winning stage, he'd pick off stage wins here and there at tours, so we'd, you know, we'd hold our own. And my first, my first actual decent win was my second race in Europe as an amateur and I won a stage of the Tour of Holland, the amateur Tour of Holland. And so, you know, that's when I first went well, gee, I've made progress really fast. This is so that, you know, that eggs you on. That gives you motivation to sort of, you know, get your head kicked in for another six months before you win your next race.

Yes. Did you think, Dave, that you could last? Was it a worry that you're taking this risk, you're doing something you love. I get that. And you'll do it for as long as you can possibly fund it. Were you always thinking in your back of your mind, how long is this going to last? And is determined by my results, obviously. Was that something that was a pressure that you felt?

Not early on. I mean, I'm not conservative by nature, so I am a bit of a risk taker and I didn't know that at the time. But, you know, it wasn't probably until 22, 23 that, yes, I start. You start to think about your finances and am I, you know, am I sort of making inroads here? Am I going to make enough? Am I making a, you know. So yeah, it wasn't really until I got married when I was 23. So, yeah, that's. That sort of then changes a bit. My wife, which is still my wife now, she, you know, she made the decision to pack up and come to Europe with me sort of before we got married. She quit her job and, you know, I think I'd just turned professional 20, 21, 22. So. But yeah, it wasn't until, you know, I didn't have an issue with lack of finances at 18. It wasn't really until 23 that you start to go, okay, where am I at? You know, where's my career at sort of thing.

What was your work ethic like in those years, going between amateur and then becoming pro? Is it something because you said, you know, you're quite far back in terms of the gap and did you really have to just put your head down and feel like you were. Had to work harder than everyone else?

I mean, it's yes and no. I mean, I was pretty. I look back now, I like to think that I, you know, I dotted my I's and crossed my T's in terms of preparation and, you know, everything. All the things you should do off the bike, I was doing. So I think I did everything right. But the sports changed so much. So back then, you know, it was, it was like you'd turn professional or even in the amateur ranks because I remember I went to a Spanish team sort of two years after the national team and, you know, they'd grab you by the cheeks, when you turn up and say, ah, you're a little bit fat, you've got to lose a little bit of, you know, and we really were just learning about dieting and stuff like that, and it's become even more advanced now. But, you know, you'd starve yourself then and, you know, some riders actually pushed it too far and we would, you know, you guys would know this in all sports, in triathlon, in any of these endurance sports, where it's, you know, power to weight ratio. So it was probably more a learning curve of learning more about my body, what it was capable of, you know, how much weight could I use that would be to my benefit? So it took me probably three years in the pro ranks to actually really sort of dial into my body and know what I was capable of, where my optimum sort of race weight was. And I was a sprinter. But, you know, sprinters in Europe, you have to be one of the better climbers in Australia at a National Road Series race. A sprinter in Europe has to be able to climb better than just about any other rider domestically in the country. So, you know, yes, I knuckled down, but I wouldn't say I knuckled down anymore. I just knuckled down progressively each year and slowly sort of got better and better in the pro ranks.

Were you getting. For me, looking back and hearing the stories, and I love hearing the stories of the early trailblazers like yourself and the Phil Andersons, and Robbies, o' Grady's and all those guys, were you getting assistance as to what to do, what training to do? You know, it's a. You're a professional, but it seems so amateurish, didn't it? Was there anybody in your corner, Dave, or were you just finding out from trial and error what was happening?

I mean, so I had two years in the national team and, you know, the head coach was Heiko Sells Vedel, who'd been a track coach. So he had a lot of knowledge. And incidentally, I think he sold. Before he came to Australia, he sold his training methods and programs to Charlie Walsh, who was running the team pursuit squad. So, you know, the two years, I learned a fair bit there and then my brother was really sort of coaching me a bit. But once I was in racing in the pro ranks, you know, you're on your own. There was no Internet. Those early years, there was no Internet, There was no mobile phones. You'd buy a phone card and you'd call home once a month or, you know, twice a month. So, yeah, it was Very limited. It was very limited. You were fending this for yourself to a degree. And I was probably not that good at, you know, looking back now, I probably wasn't good at sort of sourcing out the right people to sort of be in my corner. I had some great people in my corner, and I'm not making excuses, but, you know, hindsight's a wonderful thing, isn't it? And the older we get, the wiser we get. I suppose so. But it was the same for everyone, all the expats. It was the same, really.

Knowing what you do know now about coaching and you've been a coach, you know, for a long time, you've been a professional athlete, knowing, knowing the information, such as power and heart rate and intervals and recovery and all those things, would it have changed your career? Would you have been a better cyclist? Because I imagine you are such a competitive and determined bugger that you would, if you had a poor result, you'd go and train harder.

Probably. Well, you've answered the question for me, I guess, probably. I mean, firstly, I'll say no, because I always say, well, I said my whole career, at the end of it, you've got to be content and not sort of have what ifs or, you know, could haves or should haves or. So the answer, the short answer, is no. However, I certainly over trained in my early years as an amateur, and I think the most kilometers I ever did as an amateur was on the national team. I did 36,000 ks in one year as a professional. I never, ever got near that. So I did learn probably my amateur years. I might have gone a bit better if I had have, you know, honed in on my training and actually just not over trained, not trained as much, just been a bit smarter with my training. But, you know, most of us were doing the same. Most of us didn't know. And even probably the pros actually were just sort of a step ahead of what they were, the amateur ranks, because the pros raced more, trained less.

Yes.

Amateurs trained more, race less. So it was, you know, that. That was sort of how it worked in those days.

So I want to ask you, what is your favorite race, favorite moment in your career? And I've got a feeling there's two standouts that you'll choose from. But your favorite moment in your career.

It'S an easy one. It's got to be the Giro stage win. And you know that. It sort of goes back to the question you asked me. Would I have done better if I'd trained Differently each year. I look on, I go, wow, I won a stage of the Giro. And there's still, to this day, I don't know, there's about 10 or 15 Australians in a race that's been going for 80 something years. You know, I'm one of those lucky ones that can forever can say, I've won a Giro stage. So the Giro stage is one. And then, you know, if I had to name another one. This is funny because my son was asking me this the other day and he has very little interest in cycling, but he said, you won a National title, dad? And I said, yeah, yeah. He goes, God, I can't believe you don't talk about it much. And I said, oh, well, you know, whatever. It is, what it is. And he said, what's more important, the Melbourne to Warrnambool or the national title win? And we're talking about the Melbourne to Warrnambool because sadly, it was meant to be on weekend, just gone. And I said, that's a tough one. I said, I'd probably say the Nationals because it's got prestige around the world. You know, any national champion, if you're introduced, they say, wow, that guy or that girl, wow, they're former National Champion. So, no, I think those two. But the funny thought story with the national title, I never got to wear the jersey because I won the national title at the end of October, and then they changed the date to January the following season. That's more than devastating. So it's this ongoing joke now with Matt Keenan, sometimes at National Champs or whenever we do some stuff on stage, emceeing. It's just ongoing gag.

Yeah, well, let's just go back to the Giro, because that was. And it's so funny, you said that you were a sprinter and, you know, the story goes that you rode 164k solo time trial as a sprinter. Were you worried about your sprint in that particular stage? What was the thought process? And I know the characters of the bunches in those eras were, for example, Cipollini, and he was a big character in the bunch. Still is a big character. And I read the story that Cycling Tips had done on that particular stage. It was fantastic read. I'd love you to tell our listeners how you won that stage and how Cipulane was kind of putting this. The living. You're scaring living daylights out of you.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, how long we got? We got about an hour and a half. Okay, go for it. Yeah. No, no, I mean, I'll try and shorten it. But it was at the start of the day. You're right, I was a sprinter, but I wasn't a pure sprinter. I was more a guy that could win in a group of 20 riders or 10 riders, stuff like that. I'd always finish top 10 in a bunch of sprint, but I couldn't, I couldn't nail the big ones. So day seven, I woke up feeling fantastic. I bounced out of bed and just went, this is it. And I'd always said to my. I sort of knew by then in my career that I wasn't going to win multiple times in a season. I was going to have opportunities. And when those opportunities come, like any sports athlete, when you wake up and you're bouncing out of bed, you have to grab it with both hands, you know. So I decided to go on the attack. I told my director sport if, but I was hoping that 10 or 10 or 15 guys would come with me. No one came with me. I jumped up the road. I was hearing them abuse me as I was attacking because they decided to ride piano, which in Italian means easy, easy. And the Italian teams really did rule the race then. They ruled in terms of, this is when we go easy and if you break those rules, you better win or you're going to cop it. And so I've attacked after 17 kilometres and so I'm hearing the abuse behind. And the story goes from one of my Italian teammates, he said, you're jumping up the road and he said, they're all abusing you. And they've gone, oh, he's off, he's heading off to the butchers. There he goes, he's going to the butchers because we're racing for a vegetarian team. At the time it was a vegetarian sponsored team. So they're all joking. And you imagine back in 2000, you know, there wasn't a single vegetarian in Italy. And so I started going away and then I sat at about 10 seconds ahead of them for like a kilometer, like, I didn't go anywhere. And they're like, oh, hang on a minute, he's forgot his wallet. He's coming back to get his wallet because he needs to go to the butchers. So my teammate said he was just like, oh, my God, this is just a disaster. We're going to be kicked out of the race, you know. And then, you know, long story short, I went over the next rise, went immediately, took 30 seconds, went up to a minute, five minutes. I think I got a maximum gap of 11 minutes. And then, you know, I had to Work pretty hard all the way to the end because I won by 50 seconds in the end. And it was only with about 800 meters to go that I turned around and the race director was right behind me with his head out of the sunroof. He gave me the thumbs up and that was the only reason I knew I was going to win. Two minutes before that, I was told that the bunch was coming and I've got to bury the head all the way to the line. So, yeah, that was a memorable day. And still to this day, it's, you know, it's. Yeah, something. I feel very lucky, you know, like you guys are asking me about it 21 years later still means a lot. Yeah. So it's, you know, that those. I feel very fortunate that I can still talk about it.

I'd love to hear what they said to you, the Italians, post race and Cipollini in particular. Did the respect change. Dave, was it? Was it?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, absolutely. The next day, you know, so it was 164k solo move. But up to that point, even like the. Even though I say racing was different, what we hadn't seen for quite a few years in pro cycling were solo breaks. As we say now, everything's calculated. The teams were getting a lot smarter about how to race, how to set tempo. So I was sort of out of the box a bit. So it was like the fans loved it, the Italian commentators loved it. So I was sort of flavor of the month, you know, oh, this poor little vegetarian kid, he's won a stage, he's won it solo. This is sort of. This is great. So it was a good news story. So in a way, winning solo the way I did probably gave me more publicity than if I'd won a bunch of sprint.

Yes.

It's quite ironic, really. Winning a bunch sprint would have meant that I was potentially going to win more stages. But winning the solo one has lived on for years because of that. And. Yeah, so the next day I had a bunch of Italians who I didn't know from Italian teams coming up to me, patting me on the back. And Cipollini was one of those. And it's like Cipo was like my new mate then. It was sort of weird. He was really friendly, friendly to me for the rest of the Tour, and he called me by my name. Bizarre.

And do you have a relationship with Cipollini when you see him around the traps?

Now, Look, I don't see much. I saw him at the Tour, oh, gee, quite a few years ago now, probably Five, six years ago. And he came to the stage finish, and I saw him. So I went straight up to him, really, with my work head on, because I thought, oh, he'll be a great interview. And in our racing careers, I don't think he spoke any English at all. And my Italian's okay. It's got a bit patchy these days. But so I went up to him and spoke to him in Italian, introduced myself and said, you know, I don't know if you remember me, I raced against you. And he goes, yeah, yeah, I remember. Then he started speaking back to me in English. So it's amazing how Europe has changed so much and the sport of cycling now, English is becoming. Well, it is. It's absolutely the second language in any of these countries now, whereas 20 years ago, if you didn't speak Italian, don't speak. Or if you don't speak Spanish, forget it. So, yeah, he was. He was cool.

Amazing story. There's a. There's a point of the story that I want you to touch on, because when I was reading this, I got goosebumps. There's a point where you said, I think maybe 15 or 20 categories. You'd been away for the whole day for over 120km so far. 130. They were clawing you back, and they were coming pretty fast. I think your director came out to the side of the window and said, this is your chance. Um, and you said that was quite a memorable moment. So talk us through that last. That moment and then the last 20k and. Cause I got goosebumps kind of reading about it.

So, yeah, it was so. So my director in the car was a former pro, so he obviously knew his stuff, you know, and. But all day, he. It wasn't like he backed me. And he was. He was actually probably being realistic. And so all day, he wasn't talking to me about potentially winning the stage. He'd talk to me and say, hey, you can win this sprint. Keep going, you're going to win. You know, the intermediate sprint. And then there was the Inter Giro sprint, which was a fairly big sort of category at the Giro d' Italia back then. It was like a jersey. It was like a race within a race. So they had a finish line at the halfway mark of every stage. So all day he'd been. He had not talked about me potentially winning the stage. And it was sort of annoying me. I was like, mate, I'm not out here for the. For the TV time. I'm killing myself. I'm not, you know, as Much as I'm a bit of a team player, I didn't plan on doing this just for TV time. And so finally, as you say, at about 20 kilometers to go, he came up and he's like, mate, the guy that's chasing you has exploded. He's gone from a minute to two minutes. This is what dreams are made of. Go for it. And so suddenly it was, suddenly at that point he was, suddenly, I've got this ex pro who's backing me in and saying I can win the stage. When I'd sort of was always had sort of probably more hope that I could win. Certainly probably not belief, really. I didn't know. But suddenly I've got my own director getting the intel from race radio and he's going, my God, he can win this. So that just gave me a real, you know, sort of firecracker. And I mean, to this day, I can tell you 100%, without a doubt, it's the most I've turned myself inside out in a whole stage, because I think I averaged just shy of 40 kilometres an hour for 185ks. And imagine the bikes were on back then, I mean, they were good bikes, but nothing like the aerodynamics that you get now. And I think we had a seven kilometer climb and a four kilometer climb on the stage, classified as a flat stage for an attack for the Giro. So, yeah, I finished, I was pretty empty. I was pretty empty and if I hadn't have won, I would have been completely devastated.

So the rest of the stages, you know, the 14 more stages to come, you're on cloud nine and didn't matter what you did from that point on, you had a success. How stuffed were you for the rest of the Tour? Did that knock you around?

Yeah. Well, this is the funny thing, the very next day, and this is a tell not a word of a lie here, the very next day was a 255 kilometer stage and the Giro organizers back then, they're a bit better now, but this is a true story. They miscalculated by 20 kilometres, so it was longer. So it was 275 plus 5km neutral. And I rolled 5km back to the hotel.

Yeah.

So that very next day, I think I clocked just shy of 290 and. But the first 130 kilometres we rode, your grandmother could have kept up. Everyone was in this piano mood. It was a long day. It ended up being an 8 hour, 10 minute day in the saddle. And the first 50 kilometers, I just had guys patting me on the back saying, well done. So I was the Cloud 9 absolutely carried me through that day.

One of the things I really want to touch on was, you know, in your opinion, you know, where is cycling heading? And it is a boom time for cycling in Australia and probably throughout the world. And I'm just really keen on your opinion on are we managing cycling well at the moment and what things would you like to see happen in the cycling community and the heads of cycling? Where do you think we're at?

That's a good question and it's an important question. I think up until recently we've done some good things, but we've also done a lousy job of managing our sport in a administrative aspect. So I won't shy away from criticising the UCI or even Cycling Australia to a degree. But I think right now, where we're at, I think we're going in a good direction and I guess I'll focus on just on Australia for the time being. With the formation now of Oz cycling, I'm a believer 100% that had to happen. So they had to amalgamate all of the state bodies, basically under the one umbrella. You know, we didn't have mountain bike, bmx, cyclocross, I think, but, you know, all these other disciplines were all on their own bodies and they all had their own CEOs, so it was a broken format, 100%. So I know there's going to be a little bit of pain, I think, over the next year. We don't suddenly just fix the problems, but I do think we're on the right path and we've got the first. I think we got the first female CEO of. Well, it certainly was cycling. She's the first CEO, but she's also the first female CEO, I think, of any governing body, national body of cycling in this country, which is well overdue. So I'm optimistic that we're going in a really good direction. And I think they're lining up sort of everything, the building blocks, to take the sport to the next level. On the global sense. I always think there's more that can be done. And I've been saying this for years. I think the riders actually need men and women. The women have just created one. But the riders need a really strong voice. They need a union. And I'm not for unions, per se. That scares people off sometimes. However, most cyclists, male and female, have been treated like crap for years. They don't have a leg to stand on. I was one of them. So I think I can speak firsthand and it's, it's improved over the years, but there's still a lot of improvement to come. So I think until the riders and athletes can actually be on one union, one voice that they all agree on, I think there's work to. There's. There's a lot of work to go because, you know, the. It's a tricky one. There's. There's not huge TV rights like football or maybe tennis or sports like that, but there are some. And I think they can improve, and I think the writers need to start tapping into that. But, you know, we've come a long way as well. You know, pro sport, pro teams, men's teams, big budgets. 20 years ago were $4 million, $5 million. Now they're 50 million. Women's teams now are starting to get paid. That's crazy. It's crazy. I'm always an advocate that we've got to do more for women's cycling and the men in the sport, and I'm included in that. We need to actually back more female athletes and sponsors towards female cycling because I think we've given them a poor gig for too long, far too long. And. But that, but that's improving. So I think it's going in the right direction. It would be nice to see it going a little bit faster. But we're not going to solve all the problems in 24 hours, are we?

No. And look, when we go to Europe, and we've done that quite a bit over the years and seen the direction cycling is going for the everyday cyclists and a lot of the listeners, we've got a small percentage who are really elite, and the. The majority of our listeners are everyday cyclists who either just want to stay healthy and fit, or they've got a little bit of competitiveness in them and they want to see if they can improve. And the sport of triathlon does this so well. And I think that we could learn a lot from other sports where it's inclusiveness. And I see Europe doing this with the Gran Fondo. And as you have been taking cycling tours to Europe, to Belgium, for the spring classics, you see the Fondos, they're massive. There's 15,000 doing Paris, Roubaix and Tour of Flanders. And it's a big day for people to either compete at the start of the race to try and be the fastest, or just endure the event. Do you think that that's where we should be heading? And we've always had our clubs cycling, our state races, our national bodies. Do you think we need to get that More aligned to the way triathlon does it, where you've got your elite and you've got the state champions and really good clubs, but you've got more scope for the everyday cyclists to feel a part of the direction.

Yeah, I mean, look, that's. That's another good question. I think. I think the. I think what you see across the whole sport, it's diluted out, so we sort of say, oh, gee, can improve here, here and here and here and here. But I think it's just really spread. Like, I actually think we need to do more for. We 100% need to do more for grassroots. So, no, I go away from the social cyclists. I think they're covered. I think with. So clubs like, say, St Kilda, Hawthorne, who are relatively new or restarted back up, they're doing a fantastic job getting sort of social cyclists on board. So I think that's happening. And, you know, we've got to remember, and, you know this, you're dead right, the fondos that we see in Europe and the Northern Classics, but they've got a larger pool of population, so I think we go pretty good here in terms of the social cyclists, But I think 100% there should be more money funded towards grassroots. And I think they've got to get the nrs, they've got to get it up and running in a more visible sense, I guess. Visible meaning live streaming of, you know, don't have 20 events, have 10, and make sure all 10 of them are excellent, you know, I think so. I think that's where the work needs to be done. I think there's enough being done behind the scenes with the casual cyclists. And look, I'd say I'm privy, so a little bit of information, because my wife works for auscycling and she works in participation, so I know there's a big focus on that. I think now the challenge for our governing body is to actually get the elite side of the racing, you know, running. And it's funny because I'm all about grassroots, believe it or not, I'm all about supporting grassroots. And, you know, and I see that there's a lack of funds towards that. And I mean, it's. I think of it as a pyramid. There's your pyramid, your elites are up here, but what's on the bottom, your grassroots. So if you don't have your building blocks, strong and healthy, the pyramid will fall over. And that's why I think it's fallen over. So I think there's two tiers, the elites and the grassroots. Probably the grassroots is the first part to focus on.

It is incredible though that like you said before, 2007 was the first year that every stage of the Tour de France was shown live. And now we've got Paris, Roubaix and Tour of Flanders being shown live, which is from an elite level, coming a long way. But I guess you're right, it does need to come from that base as well. Well, where do you see your future? Is it with SBS for the foreseeable future? Where do you want to go with your career from here?

Well, they've just won the rights to the Tour de France for 10 more years, so that'd see me out nicely. But look, I'm a contractor, I'm a freelancer, so people think I'm a full time employee at sbs. I'm not. But loving the group of people that you mentioned, all the names and our executive producer, Katherine Wheelen, who's been sort of really in charge of the cycling for quite a few years now. She's a great boss, she's great to work with, she backs us in, she lets us have creative control really a lot of the time over the stuff we produce. So I'm really happy in my current job and you know, and I do get to do stuff like, like the National Champs Tour down under work on, there's a few other sort of major events that I work on throughout the year. So it gives me a bit of variety and you know, it's been a challenging sort of 12, 18 months for all of us, but hopefully, yeah, I think like any cycling or sporting fan, we just want to get back to Europe, don't we? And especially in the winter months here. So now I'm really enjoying what I'm doing and it's, you know, everything we've talked about today. The sport is continuing to evolve and change and I think that keeps us all motivated to sort of stay in the sport and work in it more because it keeps evolving and changing and yeah, that's good.

It's interesting topic you just talked about, you know, what's happened in the last 12 months. What's, what's the biggest lesson that you personally have learned in this last 12 months, which is been like no other.

Well, I said I never take, I don't take my job for granted and I don't ever think it lasts forever or things like that. But every now and then it's just a nice little reminder, isn't it, to remind you what you've got in your life. And I sort of, I was Fine through the year. It was actually when we came out of lockdown, I probably had a month in December. I was like, where am I going? What am I doing? And that was when, you know, in Melbourne, at least, we're pretty much back to normal. So I think it just was a reminder for me. Yeah, I actually do love commentating. I enjoy it. And it was actually Tour down under. That was the first event I did back, you know, in a normal, normalized sense. And it was off the back of two and under. I was buzzing. Just thought, wow, that was so good to commentate. And, you know, it was an NRS race. It wasn't the world too. And I'm not saying discrediting that because it was nrs, but I loved it. It was. It was just great to cover local riders. It was great racing, you know, and that just. Yeah, I think that was a lesson just to not take it for granted. I never have. But, you know, I think all of us can have a little reminder every now and then.

Absolutely. Question to finish off. Dad always likes asking this one. Do you still still love riding your bike?

Oh, probably more than ever now. And I think the more. The older you get and the slower you get, the more you actually appreciate it. And. No, I love it. I love it. You know, like in the bulk of Melbourne's lockdown last year, I was absolutely maximizing the 60 minutes or the two hours most days that I could. And I think, you know, I think all of us. You appreciated being able to get out and ride your bike, didn't you? I certainly did. So. No, I love it. I love it so much. It takes you to so many places. You can see so much in a single ride and it's such a simple thing, but, gee, it gives you so much freedom. So, you know, that's outside of the competitive sense of it. Just getting on two wheels is so good. Great.

That's a great way to finish off. Well, thank you very much for your time. Thanks for joining us on this. We really enjoyed that chat. I want to say again, I absolutely loved last week at the nationals. We had quite a good campaign with our tribal athletes. To hear you and Matt Keenan constantly saying, oh, here's another good train, or presenting another Trivalo team with the winners. Good to hear it from your voices.

Nah, pleasure, pleasure. And, yeah, it's great. Great to get to know the local scene as well. So. No, we enjoyed it. And good luck for the year ahead for you guys. Cheers.

Thanks, Dave.

Thanks so much, Dave. Talk to you next time.