Car forever linking Australia’s cycling figures
THE 2011 Tour de France is at a critical juncture in the Italian town of Pinerolo when Gerry Ryan approaches Cadel Evans.
It’s Stage 18 and like the rest of Australia, the prominent businessman and cycling enthusiast has felt every Evans pedal stroke.
“I was checking in with him every day and he was like ‘Oh, I’m doing OK’ and the next day it was ‘I’m not doing so well’,” Ryan said.
“So I said: ‘I know you love Cadillacs. I’ve ordered a yellow Cadillac for you because you’re going to win the Tour’.”
Evans recalled: “I looked at Gerry and said: ‘Now I’m motivated!’ “I’m a bit of car geek. I don’t know how many people know that. I’d never buy myself a Cadillac and if I did, I wouldn’t buy a yellow one.
“But to have one with this significance behind it, I’m so proud to drive it.”
Seven years later, two of the most influential people in Australian sport are sitting side by side in the same bright yellow, 1958 Cadillac Coupe - numberplates ‘CADTDF’.
It rumbles along the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race course that exists because Evans did win the 2011 Tour after a heroic Stage 18.
For Evans and Ryan – Australian cycling’s uber-generous white knight – this is the machine that will forever unite them. But as of this weekend, it won’t be the only thing to link the two men who first met 23 years ago.
The Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in Victoria will see the introduction of the Gerry Ryan Award, which will be given to the best young rider under 25.