Ooh ahh it’s Ian Maher: Former Shepparton Cycling Club president returns for carnival

An honour that wasn’t lost on Maher.

A former president, treasurer, chief executive and current broadcaster and commentator of cycling, Maher has given plenty to the sport, especially in Shepparton.

Maher has spent the majority of his life hopping between different towns across regional Victoria such as Bendigo, Wodonga and Shepparton.

Despite having a passion for cycling since he was a child, Maher has never competed as a cyclist, however, he has had nearly every other role possible in the sport.

“Growing up in Bendigo during my primary and secondary school years I never missed going to the Tom Flood Arena where there was cycling and running every year,” Maher said.

“I just loved the sport.

“Then of course you grow up, get married and have kids and it’s not in your mind any more.”

While cycling may have drifted from his focus, sport in general never wavered as a passion and neither did his willingness to volunteer for local clubs.

“I was president of the Shepparton Swans, I coached their under-18s to a premiership in ’74,” he said.

“I was mixed up with the Shepparton (Harness Racing) Club, I am a life member of the Goulburn Valley (Football) Umpires Association — I have just been involved with a lot of sport.”

In the early 1990s, his youngest daughter Stephanie, a passionate and talented netballer, started to develop knee soreness.

Maher’s mind spun back like a bike tyre to his youth as he remembered the benefits of his old flame, cycling.

A quick search confirmed that Shepparton did in fact have a velodrome and within a few days, Maher was taking his daughter to Kialla for her first race.

Although, he did give himself one rule on the drive there.

“I said to myself, 'I am just going to take her out there, pay her entry fee, I am not going to get involved, I have been president of that many clubs’,” he said.

“Of course a year later, I am president of the bloody club.”

Following that decision to make him president came what has been referred to by Maher and current Shepparton Cycling Club president Brett Lancaster as the club’s golden age.

Maher said his daughter’s involvement in cycling also led him to commentate at the club’s race nights.

“From that day in 1994 (when I became president), I helped build the club up from 30 members to 200 members,” he said.

“We used to have racing on a Wednesday night and I was commentating.

“Our Wednesday nights were bigger than any carnivals up here now.

“We had riders coming from Echuca, Seymour, Wangaratta, Benalla, Albury-Wodonga all those places would come down to Shepparton on a Wednesday night.

“Upstairs at the clubrooms the balcony was open, refreshments provided, raffles going on, the club was absolutely booming in those years.”

Shepparton Cycling Club’s success in the lead-up to the new millennium was partly due to a growth in members, but also related to the abundance of talent coming through its junior ranks.

Lancaster was the poster boy as the future Olympic gold medallist rose through the ranks.

Maher said he and the current Shepparton Cycling Club president have remained connected in the decades since.

“We were lucky to have Brett (in the 1990s) who was just on the start of his success,” he said.

“The wheels have turned from me being the president and him being a star junior to him being the president and me being an old commentator.”

Throughout the festive period, Shepparton Cycling Club held its annual Christmas Carnival and it was Lancaster who invited Maher (who now lives in Melbourne) up to Shepparton to call the event for the first time in 25 years.

Since Maher’s last call at Shepparton Velodrome in 1999, the now-veteran commentator has gone from moving to Melbourne to become chief executive of Cycling Victoria to calling some of the country’s biggest races and cyclists.

“I used to commentate National Road Series events, the Tour of the Murray River, Tour of Geelong, Tour of Gippsland, Tour of Tasmania all that,” he said.

“For the last — except for this year — eight years I used to go to Tasmania for their Christmas carnivals for commentating.

“I have commentated nearly everything available, Cadel Evans, the Commonwealth Games that were held in Melbourne — I did the track and field events.”

In terms of leading Shepparton Cycling Club back to its glory days, Maher said Lancaster was the right man for the job.

However, he said it wouldn’t be an easy task given the decline in local competitive cycling.

“Nowadays, bunch riders seem to just want to go out together on the road instead of entering competitions,” he said.

“Unfortunately track cycling has died in the country areas, whereas in Melbourne, we have two indoor velodromes — you don’t have to go out on the road and be unsafe to train.

“It all starts with the juniors because once you have them, then you have the parents and they get involved and help as volunteers and then it grows and grows from word of mouth.”