The National Road Series (NRS) is an interesting dichotomy. To be one of the top riders you need to be racing at an almost professional level, yet the rest of the infrastructure, sponsorship and fan support is that of a third tier sport on the Australian landscape. There have been administrative failures, organisers backing out on proposed races and safety concerns for the riders participating in events in the past few seasons that show the cracks of what is essentially an amateur standard of enterprise.
Why then is the NRS worth your time? Dig beneath the initial image of the NRS and you will find a host of dedicated characters working to ensure the success of their own niche within the sport.
The riders at the top end are superb – many have the potential to mix it up with World Tour opposition and indeed the local racing has proven a fertile training ground for the top level. This season two riders (Chris Hamilton and Ben O’Connor) made the step up to the men’s World Tour and the women’s peloton regularly sees top quality riders at the starting line.
What strikes you most when you attend an NRS event is the sense of community between the riders, support staff and the spectators. Jokes are thrown around at the start line, familiar faces talk about the old days and of course a lot of chat revolves around the race at hand.
The favourites are well known and even the youngsters that spring up and ‘surprise’ are very familiar to the regulars on the scene as the kids who have earned a reputation in dominating the age ranks. Some of the best cycling conversations you can have are the sort where someone vehemently disagrees with you on the side of the road at a feed zone waiting for the race to come by.
Watching riders expend every last watt of energy in the moving chess battle on the roads rarely grows old. The NRS allows you to do it at closer quarters than any other sport. Even for those familiar with the higher profile Australian summer races like the Tour Down Under or the National Championships, imagine the same without the throng of spectators and the areas closed off to fans.
In NRS you can join the sprinters huddled round a fireplace at the Sam Miranda winery for the Tour of King Valley, waiting for the podium announcements and discussing the lines that they took through the final corner which led to Jesse Kerrison ending up on the grass. You can snap a picture of the High 5 Dreamteam preparing to take a team selfie or overhear a joke when the announcer mispronounces a rider’s name.
Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the series is the personalities of the athletes themselves. These aren’t the riders that get the AIS scholarships out of school, or have been told that they are the best since a young age and have the ego to go with that mixture of flattery and expectation. Many have slipped through the system, come from other sports or have seemingly failed in their dream of having a cycling career and are fighting for a second chance.
A burst into stardom
It could be anyone of a hundred unique stories from within the peloton, but the foremost example of the alternative athlete from last season was Lisen Hockings, riding for Holden Cycling. The 37-year old anaesthetist and intensive care specialist wasn’t a name that anyone in the cycling community knew before the start of 2016 and she didn’t have a team until the fourth race of the season. Nonetheless, she proved herself to be the most consistent of the women’s peloton throughout the season, winning the individual overall award for the year.
Standing at well over six feet tall, Hockings is an imposing figure on the bike, but humble and shy off it to the point that she has to be coaxed into doing interviews and is more comfortable when self-deprecating than when taking compliments. It is a refreshing departure from the alpha-type competitors that make up the majority of sports stars and comes from her unlikely introduction to cycling.
“I started out doing my first C-grade race in March last year, just for a bit of a laugh,” said Hockings. “I thought, ‘I’ve been riding a bit, I’ll do one race to prove that I don’t like it and won’t have to do it anymore.’ But it was really fun and the more I do the more fun it is. I’m learning a lot all the time and the opportunity to ride with the Holden crew, who keep educating me on the things I should be doing but I’m not… has been particularly fun.”
Her Holden teammates Shannon Malseed (21) and Louisa Lobigs (26) were on standby throughout the interview after advising Hockings not to call herself a ‘muppet’, a sort of protective role from two riders who have both raced in Europe but are still very much junior to Hockings in years. That was a point Hockings joked about when asked about her thoughts about being a ‘mature age entrant’ to the sport.
“I think you just called me old! Fair, but a little harsh,” she laughed. “It’s different, it’s not something that I was born into or grew up with and cycling is very much a team sport. Now that I get to race with a team you get to see it in a whole new light and you can see increasingly that it’s not the strongest riders who win races all the time. It’s the rider with the best tactics and team around them to support them. It’s really interesting and fun, learning to read the bike races, when to attack and different ways of thinking about the race. I’m very lucky to have these two (gesturing towards Malseed and Lobigs) who aren’t very old but have done a lot of bike racing and can help me out.”
Hockings started her debut National Road Series season with a podium finish at the Mersey Valley Tour, before continuing with a win at the Tour of King Valley and a dramatic fightback to limit losses in the final race of the season at the National Capital Tour where her series lead was under threat.
“I’ve been very lucky more than anything else. There’s been a fair bit of bad weather around – which I don’t mind – as well as fun, hilly racing. I guess one of the things, training and riding-wise, I’m choosing to do it rather than have it as a thing I have to do. I’m at a different stage of life from everyone else.”
Hockings’ different outlook on life helped her take what for many would be a career-ending catastrophe and turn into a positive force.
“I had a big crash last year, ended up with 14 fractures, broke six vertebrae and had a flail chest (a condition where the a whole section of the rib cage becomes detached) in October,” she explained. “Since then I’ve just appreciated the opportunity and enjoyed the moments where I can get out on the bike. If it’s tough getting out to train and race, I think about how frustrating it was not to be able to ride. I choose to enjoy it, I choose to ride and get the most out of myself on the bike.”
Many come to cycling by way of other sports – triathlon, running and rowing are common examples of successful converts. But again Hockings breaks the mould, having previously competed in hockey and volleyball.
“In many ways it’s similar and different. It was a long time ago now, we mentioned that I was old didn’t we? They were very much team sports, as is cycling, even if in cycling one person crosses the line first on behalf of the team,” Hockings said.
“For the people that don’t really follow cycling or know much about it, it seems very different. But really when one person wins, the whole team wins. I don’t know about other people, but anything that I’ve managed to do has been on the back of a massive workload from the Holden crew.
“There’s nothing quite like getting out on your bike for a good, long ride with friends. The racing justifies me getting out on the bike more often with the crew during the week as well, so that’s an upside.”
Most cyclists on the NRS circuit have jobs – many work in bike shops, others work for cycling sponsors. A rare few are at the top of another career, which is the case with Hockings. As well as her prestigious position at the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, she has also co-authored numerous articles for medical journals. For some people, that would mean that they could look down on the vapid nature of the sporting industry when compared to the life and death nature of intensive care.
“I’m an anaesthetist and intensive care specialist. So working full-time and having fun. I think it’s complementary, but it does mean that cycling is optional sometimes,” she admitted. “It makes me appreciate the time I get on the bike and also appreciate my work as well. I love what I do. It takes a lot of time and I’ve put in a lot of time and study to get there and I’m now in a position where I get to ride a bit, work a lot and enjoy myself.”
It’s that sort of character that forms the soul of what makes the NRS special. Watching prima donnas paid millions getting enraged by perceived slights on the sporting field is possibly the furthest thing removed from the mutual respect you see on display from the real people and personalities that make up the peloton in the national series.
That, combined with the high level of competition that sees interesting racing on a wide variety of courses and in many different conditions, are just a few of the reasons that you should take a closer look at what’s happening on the domestic cycling scene.