Opinions split on location change to Australian Road Championships

The signal for a new era for Australian cycling was confirmed Monday when AusCycling confirmed the Australian Road National Championships would be held in Perth for three years from 2025.

In 2011, when respected former race organiser John Craven told now-retired sprint champion Robbie McEwen to ride “off into the sunset and let the young men take over” following objections to the fixed course and location of the event at Buninyong, Craven's comments were even picked up by the Australian football, rugby and cricket-obsessed mainstream media. 

Former pro Mark Renshaw believed he and other pure sprinters never stood a chance of winning a green-and-gold jersey on the undulating circuit that was held in regional Victoria. Eventually the sprinter and lead-out specialist just stopped showing up at the event. 

Conjecture around the course and location of the titles became an annual debate that was revisited every January but never acted upon - until now. “West is best,” Jai Hindley (Bora-Hansgrohe) published on social media, pointing to the national federation’s statement. 

The news particularly tickled those from Australia’s isolated west coast, an area that has produced an embarrassment of cycling riches, most recently in the form of 2022 Giro d’Italia winner Hindley, Tour de France stage winner Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) and recent Tour Down Under winner Sam Welsford (Bora-Hansgrohe). 

In anticipation of the expected announcement, Cyclingnews canvassed opinion at the men’s Tour Down Under last week. Long-time proponents for change also welcomed the move, with recently appointed Astana Qazaqstan Sports Director Renshaw saying it was “well overdue”. 

“In the nature of sport, it’s better we have different courses,” he said. “We’ll still have worthy winners every year. You could run it in a carpark and still have a good Championships. I think it’s great they’re changing. 

“It’s nice if one location could have it for three years, so at least they can get some traction and then build the event and have a peak, and then onto a new location.”

For some inside the peloton, it was a moot point. Jack Haig (Bahrain Victorious) rarely returns from Europe, where he is based, to Australia for the ‘Aussie summer of cycling’ that currently includes the national titles, Tour Down Under and Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.

“To be honest I’ve only ridden Nationals once as an elite, so it doesn’t really affect me that much because I don’t have so many ambitions at the moment to come back and race them,” Haig said.

“Where it fits in the calendar, I normally don’t really spend any time in Australia, so to come out and race against eight or 10 Jayco [Alula] guys makes it pretty hard. I’ve chosen not to do it the last couple of years.”

AusCycling is yet to release the course for the 2025 titles and there is no public indication of whether it will change annually.

Doing the math

For others, a move to Perth presents additional costs that former men’s national champion and ARA Skip Capital team co-founder Matt Wilson said riders themselves may have to pay.

Perth is roughly a five-hour flight from the east coast of Australia, and an airplane ticket in peak holiday season like January can cost thousands of Australian dollars per person, or the same as a return trip to Europe.

To put that further into context, if you wanted to fly from Melbourne to Perth on Friday, for four days with one checked bag of luggage, it would have cost $2,541.86 (Australian dollars) with national carrier Qantas. Of note and to be fair, those hailing from the west have made the trip for the last two decades, costing the same vice versa.

“Our team’s got 30 riders, so you do the math,” Wilson said. “Then we’ve got four vehicles and five staff. It’s a massive, massive cost, one that we can’t bear. The athletes are going to have to pay a big part of that themselves if they want to go and do that Championships. We’ve got to do what we can do within our budget.”

However, Wilson also welcomed the move despite the “logistical challenges” and what he described as an “obvious financial burden”.

“It gives more variety and more opportunity for different types of riders to win the Championships. That’s a great thing,” he said.

“Negatives are bike racing is not like it used to be, that you can just take it somewhere, pop it up, and off it goes. There are a lot of costs that go into these races and the quality of the race and the Championships have become much higher than it used to be in terms of the event.”

The year Wilson won gold at the 2004 National Championships, he celebrated over a line marked by bunting and a simple sign that read, 'FINISH'. Now the Championships have become a bona fide event with the climb of Mount Buninyong drawing an ever-growing crowd and establishing its place as a crucial component of the road race, one that Jayco-AlUla teammates Kelland O’Brien and Michael Hepburn admit they’ll miss.

“I’d much rather see it on the east coast, or even in Queensland,” said Hepburn, who is from Brisbane. “Perth is a great city so I’m sure they’d do a great job, and they’ve got a pretty rich cycling culture.

“With Buninyong, sometimes it’s frustrating. It’s always the same course at the same place but in a way, they do a job of it. I always enjoy going down there even if it is the same thing every year. It'll be sad to see Buninyong go but I’m sure it will be back there at some stage.”

O’Brien grew up watching the titles in his home region of Victoria, before becoming a cyclist and competing in them there himself.

“I’m a big advocate for having it stay in Ballarat but there’s no harm in trying somewhere else,” the Olympian said. “There is something so special about Buninyong and the nationals there … I think there’s something about the Nationals course at Mount Buninyong that gives a sniff to all sorts of riders, it’s not just built for one type of rider. I think it makes it a really fair and fun race for everybody.”

South Australian all-rounder Damien Howson (Q36.5 Pro Cycling) could see all sides of the argument, and is an advocate for the course at Buninyong but also for change.

“I think the Nationals are a good opportunity for each state to experience the best riders from Australia all going there, so sharing that event around Australia-wide is probably a good thing, and also it spices up the racing,” Howson said.

“There’s less predictability on how the courses can be raced, and a different type of winner on different courses as well. Buninyong has been a pretty unpredictable course within itself that has produced a lot of winners, from sprinters to outright climbers and opportunists.

“But you have seen that strong, five-minute power kind of rider take away the win. Over the last 10 years there have probably been more track-based riders who have come from the team pursuit team and stuff like that who have taken the win. Mixing it up would really throw a cat amongst the pigeons.”