“My son is a cyclist – what does that mean? It means that he loves to ride his bike, he has three of them,” proud mum Tina Stevens says of her son Hayden.
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He has a mountain bike to cruise the neighbourhood with other kids, a track bike he races at the Canberra velodrome and a road bike that he does laps on.
It’s the road bike that holds special significance for the family.
“This is the bike he rode 50kms on as a seven-year-old, this is the bike that he rode further than Anna Meares on during a charity ride – which she found quite amusing,” Tina says.
“He doesn’t stop riding much, with exceptions for school and sleep, although he would sleep with his bike if possible,” she says with a laugh.
So it was a treat for Hayden to finally be able to represent a school with his riding, going away to compete in the Student Championship, an event organised by Stelio Pappas and other parents.
It was a Sunday race meet, held at the Lansdowne Reserve following the 12-round Schools Cup event.
“Unfortunately we couldn’t compete in the earlier events as Sydney is a bit far from our base in Merimbula for a mid-week competition,” Tina said.
“But the championship was perfect timing for those of us who couldn’t make the Schools Cup.”
A talented group of young riders showed off some skillful and fast-paced riding on the day with Tina saying there was a great mix of bikes and ability.
“The under sevens and nines were all so cute on their little bikes, but it was the under 11s we were there for,” she said.
She said the 11s was some of the closest racing on the day with three youngsters all in line for gold with the title decided in the final race.
The day started with a time trial, where each of the 8 under 11 boys started the race 30 seconds apart from each other.
The fastest set a scorching time of four minutes, nine seconds, averaging almost 30km/h with Hayden sitting in third just 11 seconds off the pace.
Tina said the kids were friendly and shared jokes, lollies and checked out each others bikes with the parents deciding the fourth-placed rider’s was the coolest.
“We also found out that Hayden’s time was only four seconds off some of the under 15s riders,” Tina said.
Race two was a criterium, where riders raced for eight minutes straight with a final sprint lap at the end and again the result was agonisingly close.
Hayden finished on top with his nearest two rivals taking second and third.
The third and final race of the day finished with a sprint on the last straight after a six-kilometre sprint ride.
It was the last dash that determined the the day for this age group when all three leading riders came around the last corner close together, with 200m or so to the finish line. Hayden put on a burst of energy in the last 20 metres to overcome his opponents in a shock finish that he said he “couldn’t believe I pulled off”.
