The early organizers of the Sudbury Cycling Club (SCC) started from scratch, more or less, in founding a summer legacy in 1974 that went on to produce a boatload of provincial and national competitors and three Olympians, creating memories galore as the group assembled last month at the Caruso Club for their 50th Anniversary.

Current organizers may have to do it all over again if the SCC is to enjoy a 100th Anniversary party in 2074.

As the story goes, the genesis of the Sudbury Cycling Club dates back to the hosting of the Ontario Summer Games in Sudbury (1974), an event at which current head coach Carlo Berardi competed.

It was hardly a setting that screamed of future cycling superstars.

“Up until the mid-seventies, there really wasn’t an availability of the European racing bikes (at least not in Sudbury, apparently),” noted Berardi. “Carlo Valduga (one of the SCC founding members) was the only guy I knew who actually had a real European style racing bike, one that he brought over with him from Italy.”

“But the so-called ten speed bikes were starting to take off and those were the original racing bikes that we had, kind of built along the racing bike pedigree,” Berardi continued. “But they were heavier, not really racing bikes.”

“Somehow, the City got hold of Carlo and asked him to get Sudbury kids to participate in the Summer Games.”

Within a few months, the foundation for future success would be established when head coach Battista Muredda embraced his new role with the SCC, one which he would maintain for some 49 years, backing away in 2023 in order to spend more quality time caring for his ailing wife.

In 1976, the club produced its first provincial and national junior champion (Gary Trevisiol), the local product eventually competing at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, paving a pathway for the likes of both David Spears (1988 Olympics – Seoul) and Eric Wohlberg (1996 Olympics – Atlanta; 2000 Olympics – Sydney; 2004 Olympics – Athens).

Fast forward to 2024 and the Sudbury Cycling Club currently does not have a racing team, per se.

While Emily Marcolini is no stranger to the group or the Delki Dozzi track - over the years - the 28 year-old local product who is truly the only Sudburian who has competed internationally in the sport for quite some time has long since moved the bulk of her training to the southern United States.

For as much as the Dozzi track still hosts practice sessions a few times a week, with the circuit closed off to outside traffic, their client base is vastly different than the teens that effectively launched the club in 1974.

“I think, in general, we are attracting those riders that are thirty and over, that have a good bike and want to participate in an organized training session,” suggested Berardi.

And therein lies the current discussion.

There is, without a doubt, a willingness for those still involved with the SCC to embrace a youth racing team, one which would hopefully bear some similarity to the afore-mentioned early enthusiasts as well the likes of siblings David and Paul Girolametto, Frank Battaion and so many others.

“When you have a racing team, the interests are different,” acknowledged coach Muredda. “With a racing team, we were motivated, as a club, to raise funds. For about ten years, our riders never paid for travel or accommodation. The executive was very involved with that.”

“If you only have a recreational club, will the interest go down?,” Muredda quipped. “I don’t know; it’s possible.”

Yet both he and the gentleman who still leans heavily upon him for coaching advice are adamant that as those individuals responsible for sharing much of their knowledge, the racing component is not essential to coaching – or at least not racing at an elite level necessarily.

“There is so much to learn about the sport, even for those that are recreational,” stressed Muredda. “They still have to learn how to train properly, how the ride the bicycle, the gears that they use. The coaching is still a vital part: how to corner, how to brake, how to change gears.”

“I still enjoyed the coaching even if they were all fifty, sixty or seventy years old.”

That speaks directly to the mindset that Carlo Berardi is seeking to propagate.

“I tried to develop a program that offers something for everybody,” he said. “We have such a diverse group of individuals. We’re not just getting pure road cyclists.”

“I could design a plan for the 17 year-old kid, for a thirty year-old or an old-timer,” added Muredda.

Indeed, the club has also welcomed burgeoning triathletes looking to better understand the nuances of the middle section of their race – as well as cyclists who perhaps have a little more time on their hands and are looking to remain active, a lengthy weekend ride to Manitoulin Island or Killarney bearing a certain a appeal.

It is a given that times change.

Battista Muredda laughed in noting that one of the most popular regions, globally speaking, for growth in the e-bike (electronic bike) industry is right in the heart of the elite cycling world.

“In Italy, they are full of e-bikes,” noted Muredda. “A lot of the old-timers who used to do the mountains, they can’t do them anymore. But now, with the e-bikes, they still peddle; they just have the motor to assist them. There are former professionals who now ride with younger people thanks to electric bikes.”

No one is suggesting that the future of the Sudbury Cycling Club lies with e-bikes. But for as much as there is a will to host a racing team, that requires a healthy injection of young athletes willing to commit to one of the most gruelling of sports, from a training perspective.

Perhaps there is a need to adapt to whatever the cycling marketplace demands – though I do not profess to know what that might be. It would however, be a shame, to see an organization that is steeped deep in tradition not continue to offer much of what it has to offer, much that runs well beyond Olympic Games appearances and such.

Battista Muredda most certainly agrees.

“For me, the most rewarding thing was to work with the young people and help them,” he said. “You taught them not only cycling, but life values.”

Fifty years from now, that should still be celebrated.

(organizers of the SCC 50th Anniversary celebration included Hussein Weibe (club president) and Mario Basso, along with both Carlo Berardi and Battista Muredda)

And in other news involving the Sudbury Cycling Club, the group recently hosted the Sudbury Terry Fox Ride of Hope, with 15 cyclists combining to raise more than $4000 for a very worthwhile cause.