Sid Taberlay

As a young teenager, Sid took up mountain biking with his mates. “It was simply a case of following my friends into the sport”. At the time they were into down hilling and trials riding. “It was all about how much air you could get or the two wheel drift”. Eventually Sid was spotted by the Tasmanian Institute of Sport talent identification program and was thrown onto a road bike. During his two years as a junior he struggled to stay inside the top 10 at XC Nationals. Determined not to be out done, his persistence, hard work and dedication finally earned him selection in his first Australian National Team to represent at the 2000 World Championships in Spain. From 2001 he has been chalking up a number of National Championship titles and podium results around the world. The obvious culmination of all this effort was to be selected in the 2004 Olympic Team, followed by a Specialized factory ride for 2005. With their support he went on to achieve his best result to date - a World Cup Podium. He’s now racing between Australia and the USA, doing the double with Shoair/Specialized MTB Team and Cal Giant Strawberry/Specialized road Team. http://www.team-shoair.com/ http://www.calgiantcycling.com/

Age: 30

Height: 169cm

Home: Kingston Beach, Tasmania

Home away from home: South Pasadena, California

Started riding: Around 1993

Wife: Phillippa (Pip)

Pets: Samoyed (Zarlee)

Highlights:

Multiple Australian National Champion

World Championship Medalist

World Cup Podium

Athens Olympian

Favorite bike: Spend a lot of time on my Tarmac, though I love pinning the down hills on the Stumpy. I have recently developed a connection with my Tricross, something about the challenge of not getting off when the courses are designed for dismounting.

Usual dinner: Meat and Vegetables

Beverage: H2O Overdrive, Jostaberry

Time spent off the bike: Procrastinating- just looking out the window watching the waves roll onto

the beach, house chores, hanging out with friends, bike maintenance.

Life after cycling: Couldn’t work out what I wanted to do when I left school, then riding took off, 12 years later I’m still trying to work it out…

Wildside 6 from 7

February 5, 2010

Spent the week on Tasmania’s rugged west coast participating in a four-day stage race- Wildside. As usual there was a great turn out of Australia’s top riders, and the event easily made its cap of entries. It started on a dry Cradle Mountain and fast racing. I narrowly managed to take out both stages on the first day, and was feeling comfortable with the pace at the front. Day two was a different story; I sliced my tire within the first kilometer. I thought I was all-good from learning a little trick in the past- throw a GU gel wrapper on the inside of the tire to hold the tube in. Which

worked fine until the tube blew out 3 minutes later, (at that point I knew the race for GC was

over) I couldn’t work why the tube blew out, after fixing it a second time I realized the Gu wrapper was sliding around on the inside between the tire and tube with all the sealant. I now have a new trick- put the edge of the wrapper between the tire bead and rim to hold it into place. I made it to the finish in 138th :-) The rest of the race I found myself feeling more comfortable as the stage and rode away from the front group for 6 stage wins.

Was great to see Mike Tomalaris and team on hand to cover the event, please check:

http://www.sbs.com.au/cyclingcentral/ for videos.

Once again, Thanks to Nic Deka and his team plus the volunteers for making one of Australia’s

greatest MTB events.

Full results: http://www.wildsidemtb.com/

Sid Taberlay

Stats for Sid Taberlay are coming soon.