A Kiwi win to honour an Aussie friend

A win to say thanks to John Cornish

Aug 9th, 11. Kiwi Brett Tivers wanted to be at a memorial ride for a good friend in Melbourne, but instead he was racing in New York - there was only one option, to honour his friend with a win.

Taranaki rider Tivers is based in Canada this year, but for the last few seasons he made Melbourne his home.

It was there he met and became good friends with John Cornish.

When Tivers lined up for the Tour of Catskills time trial last Friday, the day a memorial ride was held in Melbourne for 31 year old Cornish who was tragically killed two weeks earlier, he knew he had to do something special.

He won the 20km time trial by 30sec.

"Since I couldn't be at Johnny's memorial ride today I instead rode for him in the time trial at Tour of Catskill......that win was for you mate!" Tivers wrote on his facebook page.

RoadCycling.co.nz invited Tivers to share more about this story.

One close call too many

by Brett Tivers

I had just finished watching a stage of the Tour de France when I stumbled across the devastating news that my best mate in Melbourne John Cornish had been killed.

Not knowing how or why, and it being 2am in Australia, it took a few frantic calls and messages until I finally found out what happened.

On the Friday afternoon John had been training with one other rider along Beach Road. Whilst he was passing a parked car, a van/truck decided to change from the right to left hand lane hitting Johnny in the process.

This news hit the Melbourne cycling community hard as Johnny was a well known cyclist and Beach Road is a common training ground that even most Kiwis would either have ridden on, or known about.

Johnny would be very familiar to a lot of Kiwis who have ridden in Australia over the past few years, and in fact a few of the Kiwis have even been in teams with him before.

Tivers talking about his win

Bring forward to last Friday and it was a memorial ride that hundreds of cyclists attended and brought national news headlines.

Going through the emotions of firstly not being able to attend his funeral and now also missing a chance to attend the memorial ride, it was pretty clear cut that I was going to be going all out for him in the 20km time trial at Tour of Catskills in his memory.

Winning that time trial meant a lot to me as it was an event that Johnny always prided himself on, and it was a simple thank you for all of his support, motivational talks, encouragement and fun on the bike whether it has been training or racing with him over the past four years.

Johnny's death, along with another Aussie pro cyclist in Carly Hibbard, has really affected the Australian Community and has emphasised even more the Amy Gillett Foundation Cycling Awareness programme.

Hopefully something positive will come out of this - cars banned from parking on Beach Road and even to the extent of trucks being banned from driving along Beach Road.

As cyclists, we have all had plenty of close calls, for Johnny this was one close call too many.....