Features
Faces of Cycling: Dean & Blair Windsor
By
Muriel Reddy : 01-Jul-2009
The sun is still rising on the racing careers of Dean and Blair Windsor but the brothers are already dreaming of competing in the Tour de France. In a sport characterised by performance, patience and endurance, these boys have set their sights on the summit and are preparing for the vertiginous ascent.
Scaling the heights is not exactly new in the Windsor household. Good sporting blood is in the genes. Their great-uncle Jack Windsor was a celebrated cyclist whose career was cut short by the outbreak of the Great War. Their father, Mark, represented NSW during the '80s at the Open National Road Championships and rode for Repco, a domestic trade team. He also competed in ironman competitions. Their mum, Kerryn, was a member of the under-16 Australian hockey team.
"It was always a very big battle between us to get the kids to play either sport," Mark recalls.
Given their pedigree, it's little surprise that the Windsor boys have their eyes on competing in Tour de France. Their older sister, Meg, was a national race champion who also won gold, silver and bronze in the Youth Olympics but had to quit her cycling career because of rheumatoid arthritis in her feet. Dean, who at 22 and is two years older than his brother, has raced in Europe with the AIS Under-21s team and his UCI Continental Professional Team Drapac Porsche. He has won the National Championship on the road in the u23s, a junior Oceania Championship on the track, and has also won jerseys in several international level events.
"The Tour de France is the glamour event in my discipline," he says. "That's the dream. I'm only 22 and if you look at the people who ride these races, they're a lot older. This is very much a sport that is sustainable."
At 20, Blair is happy to follow in his older brother's footsteps. "He has been one of my biggest influences," he says. "It's been really good to have him as a role model."
Blair, who races with the Budget Forklifts team, says that although they are rivals on the road, they enjoy an especially close relationship as brothers. "We're best mates more than brothers. He really looks out for me."
Dean is also grateful for the bond with his brother. "We have never had a fight. It's nice to be able to race and train with my brother. It makes it all a lot easier. Because I am a few years older, I have the edge most of the time but he's scaring me a bit at the moment because he's going so well. We have a lot of respect for each other and we look out for one another."
The brothers most recently raced against one another in the Canberra Tour; it was their final race together before Dean left to compete in Europe. "We enjoyed it as a sort of last hurrah together," Blair says. "We both finished in the top 15, and Blair beat me. It was a really good weekend for both of us."
And while Blair, like his brother, nurtures the dream of one day riding in the Tour de France, he's content for the moment to put in the hard work required to make it there. "Hopefully one day if I get the opportunity, I will take it with both hands and do it."