Wheels in Motion Aaron Flanagan outlines the success of the Brisbane Cycling Festival July, AusCycling celebrated success at the National Sports Physical Activity Convention held in Melbourne, with IitsnandBrisbane Cycling Festival winning in two categories at the Sport, Recreation and Play Innovation Awards. The Festival claimed the Major Event Promotion Award for providing community opportunities to grow participation by aligning a mass participation or a major spectator event. The Festival also secured the overall Sport, Recreation and Play Industry Award for Innovation having been judged as the organisation or event that has activated or has the potential to activate significant numbers of people across Australia due to their work. For AusCycling and its major funding partners, Tourism & Events Queensland and Brisbane Economic Development Agency along with NX Sports who deliver the Tour de Brisbane within the festival, securing these awards was tremendous recognition for its steadfast commitment to deliver the festival through challenging pandemic impacted times. The Brisbane Cycling Festival is a great example of a major festival developed and delivered as a genuine partnership Crowd at AusCycling Track National Championships
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between government agencies, major event owners and the community organisations that deliver affiliated events during the festival window. Back in May 2018, the concept of the festival was collaboratively imagined by AusCycling, Tourism & Events Queensland and Brisbane Economic Development Agency as a strategic opportunity to bring existing and potential new cycling events together under a collective festival umbrella and, as a result, the Brisbane Cycling Festival was established. The first edition of the Brisbane Cycling Festival was successfully held in April 2019, with the 2020 edition cancelled part way through due to the arrival of the pandemic and despite the impacts of subsequent border closures and lockdowns the festival was delivered in 2021 and 2022 achieving substantial participation growth annually. AusCycling’s vision for the Brisbane Cycling Festival is to deliver Australia’s largest multi-discipline cycling festival embracing every pathway of the sport from learn to ride to elite national and international competition with an inclusive focus. Hosted annually in the March/April period, the major pillars of the four-week festival include the AusCycling Track National Championships hosted at the world class Anna Meares Velodrome and the Tour de Brisbane Gran Fondo which incorporates the AusCycling National Road Series and also enjoys status as a UCI World Gran Fondo Series Qualifier event. In 2022, the festival also hosted the Oceania Championships for all disciplines which was the first time all disciplines had been hosted in a single destination. The Tour de Brisbane is a unique event being the only mass participation bike ride encompassing various distances up to 110km on fully closed road in and around a capital city. Participants enjoy features such as crossing the landmark Storey Bridge and passing through the city’s busway and tunnel network and taking on the gruelling Mt Cootha climb. Supporting the major events is an affiliated program of events
