Sid Taberlay

Mountain biking was a new sport when Sid Taberlay hit the tracks.

Sid was first drawn to mountain biking as a “kid mucking around with friends” in Tasmania.

While Mountain Biking maintained its fun side, the sport offered a complete package of intensity, challenges, technical aspects and marathons resulting in Sid becoming a professional rider competing around the globe.

In the early stages of Sid’s career he finished third in the Under 23 Australian National Championships and was selected for his first National Team in 2000 for the Under 23 World Championships in Spain.

Multiple top 10 placings in the 2004 World Cup qualified Sid for the 2004 Olympics in Athens.

Success at the Olympics proved elusive; however, Sid became one of Australia’s leading Mountain Bikers. Sid was a five-time National Champion and World Championship Medallist, Oceania medallist and won numerous pro Mountain Bike races in the United States and Europe, including stages wins in 2004 Mountain Bike Tour de France as an individual and as overall winner in the teams’ classification in 2007.

In 2008, Sid won the Santa Ynez NORBA Cross Country, in USA.

Mountain bikers are tough and Sid is one of few Australians who can claim to have tangled with a bear. In 2005, during a training accident at the Schweitzer Mountain, Idaho NORBA cross country race, Sid collided with a bear. Sid had never seen a bear before. In Tasmania snakes are the only thing to worry about.

Photo by The Examiner