PATRONS
- Brad McGee
- James Williamson
- Ben Kersten
James Williamson
I started riding with the Southern Highlands Cycle Club in 2000 and quickly became deeply involved with the sport. The Southern Highlands is such a great place to ride, for both mountain biking and road cycling. The friendly people in the club, along with the awesome energy I got from feeling fit and healthy soon got me addicted to training and racing. After a further few years in the highlands I moved away for uni commitments. I kept up the training though and in 2006 I won the Australian Championship for 24hr Mountain Bike racing, an amazing experience for me.
I love mountain biking and love meeting new, enthusiastic people in the sport like Ben. The news of Ben’s death shocked me deeply. It felt like only a few weeks before that I’d tutored a mountain bike skills session with Ben and other enthusiastic young Highlands mountain bikers. The accident didn’t make any sense and felt so horribly unjust.
With everyone chatting about Ben’s enthusiasm it reminded me of myself training in the early years, how much I loved each ride and got so excited by the consistent improvement. To cut a young, enthusiastic life so short is a huge tragedy.
We must try to take some positives out of such a terrible accident which is why it is so important to really understand the Ben Mikic foundation. Having lost my mum to a road cycling accident I have experienced the shock and pain of an unexpected loss. Having to confront this sadness with Ben’s death and witnessing Ben’s family go through extreme sadness that I hoped I’d never have to witness again, it is clear that we must all take positives from such hardship. If anything can be done to avoid this sort of thing happening again for Ben’s sake and his family’s it is basically our duty that we all get behind it.