The end of a season brings about an opportunity to reflect on a year of competition. There’s barely a break in racing on the modern calendar and the off-season is shorter than ever… with most professionals already well into training for 2017. Mathew Hayman has collected a few trophies this year – one in France in April and a few from the Australian Cyclist of the Year awards in November. And he’s doing some of his training in public while raising funds for a charity.
Keith Bremner reports…
A session on Zwift in a Queensland church hall
Paris-Roubaix winner and Australian Cyclist of the Year, Mathew Hayman was in Beaudesert, Queensland on Saturday night (3 December 2016) taking part in a worldwide ‘On Line Charity Bike Ride’.
Mathew is an ambassador for the Zwift Indoor Cycling program since his outstanding win in this year’s Paris-Roubaix and Zwift partnered with the World Bicycle Relief to raise $200,000 to help mobilise people in some third world countries.
Mathew was riding his Orica-BikeExchange team-issue Scott on a smart trainer connected via his laptop to the internet with many of the world’s elite cyclists, like Jens Voigt, Axel Merckx and many others, with the goal of riding over 400,000km in 24 hours.
Mathew was really putting in some big efforts and he was good enough to explain everything to the mere mortals watching on around him.
He was telling us that in Japan, he is literally mobbed due to his Paris-Roubaix win. It was so strange to be in a small country town in an almost deserted church hall watching this humble and very experienced pro cyclist go about his task with as much enthusiasm as if he were training for the Tour de France.
After his ‘ride’ we got to hold his Australian Cyclist of the Year Medal and everyone got a photo with him of course.
I’ve done a ‘Pelotoons’ cartoon in RIDE Cycling Review featuring Mat a couple of times now so it was really good of him to sign a few of them for me.
He’s got a new child on the way and next year could be his last year in the pro ranks so let’s hope he can have another cracking year like the last season. Wouldn’t we all love to see him take home another cobblestone trophy before he retires?!
– By Keith Bremner
The ‘Pelotoons’ by Keith Bremner from earlier this year…
The cartoonist and the cyclist… Keith and Mathew.
