Shane Kelly started riding bikes there in 1980 at just eight years old. His family drove down from Ararat every weekend so he could join one of Victoria's few junior clinics.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Mitch Docker raced at the old concrete velodrome as a junior, and Lizzie Williams and Baden Cooke both trained and rode there.
This weekend the Brunswick Cycling Club celebrates its centenary with a dinner on Saturday night and a barbecue on Sunday.
It's the second oldest existing bike club in Victoria, says club historian Ben Schofield, who has written a history of BCC for the centenary.
The oldest is in northern neighbour Coburg, founded in 1896. ("But they didn't do anything for the first 20 years," says one club stalwart. "That makes us the oldest.")
"Cycling was traditionally a working man's sport," says Schofield. "There were professional clubs based around bike shops."
The club was founded in June 1916 as the Northern Suburbs Amateur Cycling Club – the first after the Victorian Amateur Athletic Association decided to revive amateur cycling in 1912. The name was changed to Brunswick in 1923.
Brunswick velodrome, the club's home since 1956, is in the middle of a $750,000 track upgrade funded by the state government and Moreland council. They've also spent $1 million on new clubrooms. The centenary party was delayed by the redevelopment.
Brunswick has a long history of bringing youngsters into the sport – the junior clinic was started in 1948 by Henry Hill of Hillman Cycles fame. Brunswick local Ruby Roseman-Gannon is the Madison Junior World Champion.
Paddy Butler, 17, was riding past the velodrome one Saturday morning when he was six and decided to join the clinic, along with brothers James, now 19, Tim, 15, and later Tom, 10.
Butler now runs the junior clinic and races in the under-19s.
"We have 50 to 70 kids of all ages up to 15," says Butler.
He said there was no lower age limit, "as long as they can ride a bike without training wheels".
The club has 85 junior track bikes – fixed wheel, no brakes, toe straps: the only way to start, Butler says.
Women have had an important place at the club too, with girls coming through the clinic since the early 1970s. Brunswick ran a Victorian Women's Championship in 1973.
"Brunswick doesn't discriminate against other organisations," says new club president Ag Giramondo. "For example, we host Dirty Deeds CX, which started cyclocross racing in Australia." The hipster cobblestone rally Melburn Roobaix finishes at the velodrome every June.
"If we lose riders to elite programs we applaud them," says Giramondo. "We have a coaching program for people who ride bikes. We produce champions because we don't focus on it. We focus on loving the sport and giving back to the sport."
