Canadian Club
Milton Revolution Cycling Club
The town of Milton, Ont., is home to Canada’s only uci-certified velodrome, built for the Pan Am Games in 2015. Its presence has had a strong impact on its community, especially for the newly founded Milton Revolution Cycling Club. Traditionally, cycling clubs consist of mostly male riders, but what makes this club distinctive is the number of young female riders. Of the club’s 25 members, girls represent at least 50 per cent of the riders. Even though the mrcc participates in multiple road events during the season, riders train at the velodrome year-round. “There’s something cool happening there. Olympic athletes, like Monique Sullivan and Kate O’brien, make themselves so accessible to the youth riders at the track. Our kids will come and ride, and at any given time, there will be Maggie Coles-lyster, Jasmin Duehring, Allison Beveridge – they’re all there. The girls see that, and they see their role models and they feel they’re involved in something special,” says Martin Honsberger, an mrcc board member. “The nice thing about the velodrome is everybody’s there. You get that sense of community that I’ve never experienced with any other type of cycling.”
The idea for the club was born in 2016 by Steve Bauer. He wanted to bridge the gap between competitive cycling and a grassroots club that would bring kids into the sport and provide a fun environment. Even though Bauer is now with the bmc Racing Team, he still has a keen interest in the mrcc’s events.
Focusing its races in the Milton region and London, Ont., the club is hoping to stretch its travel miles to other velodromes in North America. “We’re looking at reaching out farther to Detroit, Pennsylvania and North Carolina,” says Honsberger.
Honsberger organizes and runs training at the track with mrcc’s club president, Don Hunter. Hunter was competitive for many years and was club president of Mississauga Bicycle Racing Club for 10 years. Both Hunter and Honsberger want to ensure that as the club grows, mrcc keeps Bauer’s initial vision in mind.
“We do have a lot of riders who are competitive. We do support that, but it’s not exclusive to competition. Some kids are in it for fitness and want to improve themselves as riders,” says Honsberger. With club riders coming from other nearby cities, including Guelph, Brampton, Mississauga and Oakville, the mrcc is anticipating strong growth.
With the influence of so many Olympic athletes in the riders’ midst, one has to wonder what rank of athlete the mrcc may be developing, intentionally or not. “Our goal is to be grassroots. That could ultimately lead to an Olympic athlete, but it’s not our goal to create an Olympic athlete,” says Honsberger.