I had some grand plans for gaining access to the bikes used at the World Championships and bringing you an in-depth look into the bikes of the stars and those you may not have heard of. Unfortunately, plans don’t always work out. 

The relatively small size of Wollongong and surrounding towns pushed hotel and rental prices higher than any of the nearby hills. So in turn, several teams were forced to get creative with where they stayed and trained. Several national teams stayed in Wollongong itself, across a broad spread of hotels, serviced apartments, and caravan parks. Some, such as the Belgians and Danes, were just a short drive along the coast. The Italians and Brits chose seclusion, a good hour’s drive west and up the hill. And then you had the Canadians and a few others who were way back in Sydney, almost an hour and a half north.

Come race day, there were strict media controls for who had access and who didn’t. My press pass wasn’t quite the backstage pass I was used to having, and I was often turned around and away from the bikes by race officials. This isn’t to complain – and hey, at least I had a press pass! – but rather to state why we don’t, as planned, have wonderful tech galleries showing off the bikes of the women’s peloton, the brands you’ve never heard of, the bikes used by the rising stars in the junior categories, and the travelling toolboxes of the race mechanics. 

I’ll openly admit there isn’t much cohesion in this gallery. In many ways, it’s a photo dump of ideas I was planning to expand on that didn’t work out. But while it’s somewhat of a random mess, it would be a shame to keep it all to myself.