The Norwood Cycling Club’s Super Series is enjoying a boost in popularity on the back of the popular Santos Tour Down Under
The Norwood Cycling Club’s Super Series will kick-off on Sunday with nearly half of the riders travelling from interstate to take part in the action-packed three-day event.
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Long before cycling was proved to save greenhouse gas emissions, the sport was No. 1 when Marshall Major Taylor – the first African/American sportsman to become a world champion – packed out Adelaide Oval.
Ten of thousands watched the US marvel race at the iconic venue in 1903, when cycling was the most popular sport in the world.
More than a century later, that cycling passion has reinvigorated locals as SA’s 11-day festival of cycling sees the Norwood Cycling Club – the oldest in the southern hemisphere since 1883 – enjoying a resurgence courtesy of the popularity of Santos Tour Down Under.
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Russell Gill, 32, an Australian U23 criterium champion, is Norwood’s reigning club champion for the crit and road race.
He is an assistant manager at the historical Super Elliotts Cycles and runs Reco Day – a sports recovery business in the city – with his wife to be Alana Haansbergen.
Gill has raced bikes for his entire life, taking after his father Alan Gill – who raced in front of more than 5000 fans in 1991 when the East End hosted the ‘Cycle with the Stars’ street race – and his uncle Shane Gill.
“There are so many more people floating around that love the sport at this time of year,’’ Gill said.
“Norwood do a great event for these crits apart from the bike racing, there’s plenty to do and have a great time, but I really want to do well in these races.
“I won one of these races last year and I would say that I’d be a marked rider, I just parted ways with the team I have been riding with for the past two years, so I’m an individual rider now and I won’t have the support of the others in the bunch.”
The Norwood Super Series starts in Bradbury in the Adelaide Hills on Sunday with a kermesse and two crits at Victoria Park on Monday and Tuesday.
Norwood’s treasurer and executive committee member David Habib said the club has equal prize money of $1000 for the winners of the men’s and women’s first grade race.
He expects about 250 competitors each night with about 40 per cent of entrants coming from interstate.