When most people began winding down for the year in the lead-up to Christmas Seymour BMX rider Wade Worth was drenched in sweat racing around tracks in Queensland.
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For two days, Worth practised over the Nerang jumps and course. In the two days after that, he won two national AusCycling BMX titles.
Back home at Seymour, his children Lauren, 9, and Ryder, 8, were watching the livestream as their dad won the cruiser and 20-inch class for his 30-34 age group.
“It was pretty cool,” Ryder said of watching his dad on TV, albeit a YouTube livestream.
Ryder, kitted up in similar gear to his dad at the Broadford BMX track a week later, sped around the Broadford track with Lauren as Worth watched.
They’re the reason he is riding at the level he is now.
“I think I started when I was probably four or five,” Worth said of his own riding journey.
“I did it professionally until I fell back and did basketball and footy and all the rest of the stuff, you know, and just the travelling.
“We were trying to do national titles in Australia and stuff in Perth and things like that. It just got a bit too much for the folks.”
He tried a brief comeback in his 20s, but it was only when Lauren and Ryder showed much interest that he took it seriously again.
The 2020 season was wiped early in the piece, but it didn’t stop him riding when he could, escaping to Park Orchards or Frankston or other courses in Melbourne.
He has loved it, but having the kids driving him has been the biggest boost.
“It's been fun, like, pushing myself again and all that sort of stuff, you know, and I honestly did not expect to be where I am today,” Worth said.
“They are probably the biggest motivator.
“Having them at home, them watching on the telly watching me do that, I think that it actually sunk in a bit more that I just became a national champion, and they got to watch on the TV.”
He never forced the kids into cycling, but during 2020 when Worth jumped on the bike his kids “wanted to suss it out”.
“Everyone expected my kids to be professional riders and I was like, just let them do stuff they want to do. They wanted to skateboard and whatnot, but early last year they decided they wanted to learn how to ride,” he said.
“They’d never really ridden without training wheels at that point.”
When they were riding, Worth took them out to the track and joined them, and despite coming back to riding for “fun and fitness”, he has ended up with dual national titles.
He is aiming to compete in the professional class in 2022, which is without age groups and is a big step up from the divisions he was in last year, but Worth is determined not just to compete in the division — he also has his eyes set on qualifying for the World BMX Championships in France.
But the focus for now is the kids and their own goals
Worth said the sky was the limit for Ryder and Lauren if they stayed interested in the sport, with sights set on the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.
“He'll do good eventually, because he's the only one on the bike every day,” Worth said of the aptly-named Ryder.
“The way grading works he’s always going to be racing kids older than him, always going to be a bit hard for him until he turns 15 or 16. It’s hard at the state titles, when there’s 30-something kids there.”
Lauren didn’t initially jump on the bike with the same enthusiasm, Worth said.
“She was a bit bored and jumped on the bike ... she did really well in the girls’ class last year,” Worth said.
“Who knows? They’ll be the right age for Brisbane and there are BMX world titles in Australia in 2027.
“You never know.”
He is hoping more kids might join Lauren and Ryder, too — Worth has been in discussions with Mitchell Shire Council to restore the BMX track at Broadford and take up coaching.
“There’s nothing around which makes it really hard for people who want to train or try it,” Worth said.
He said the track needed a bit of work done to it, but he hoped it would be ready to use by the end of February or the start of March.
Worth said more information would be made available closer to the start date, but he was hoping to do coaching two or three times a week for interested children.
Journalist