Young Dave Tucker’s love for cycling began in 1946 as a 15 years old. When he joined the ‘Wagga District League Cycling Club’ and began cycle racing.

 He’s ability on the bike was noticed almost immediately with plenty of good results all around the Riverina region on both the track and the road, where Dave established himself as one of the regions strongest cyclists over a ten year period.

Through the 1950’s and 60’s cycling was an extremely popular sport in Australia and the ‘Riverina Zone’ was among the strongest cycling communities in the country with healthy clubs in Wagga, Albury, Leeton, Narrandera, Junee, Harden, Cootamundra to name but a few. In fact, Dave and many of his Wagga team mates would regularly jump on the 5:00pm train, with their bikes, and travel to Albury to compete in Albury’s weekly club race and then jump back on the 11:00pm train and return home.

 In 1955 Dave was awarded the honour of ‘Wagga District League Cycling Club’s – Club Captain’ and was presented with the prestigious ‘Blue Club Captain’s Blazer’. The blazer has taken pride of place in Dave’s wardrobe ever since.

After a very successful career on the bike Dave decided to hang up the bike in 1957 before marring Shirley in 1958. However, he still remained involved in the sport and was the Wagga Club’s handicapper for many years though the 1960’s.

In 1976 at the age of 45 Dave decided to dust the cobwebs off the bike and start racing again. He had almost instant success when he won one the 1977 ‘Lloyds Homes 100km Classic Road Race’ right here in his home town. The race was one of the country’s most prestigious handicap road races and Dave won in a bunch sprint off a very respectable handicap of 16.30 minutes.

 His success continued in 1981 at the age of 50 when he won another one of the regions more notable races, the ‘Bob Paterson Memorial 70km Road Race’ at Coolamon. Once again he worked well with his co-markers to hold off a classy field which included world class riders.

 Dave retired from racing again in the mid 1980’s but kept riding socially. However, the opportunity to compete in the Australian Veterans Games here in his home town in 1993 was too much for Dave, so he ‘polished up’ his racing shoes once again and had one last crack at glory at the age of 62. He even pulled his old track bike out of the shed to compete in the track events! It proved to be a successful campaign as he won; 1 gold 2 silvers and a bronze medal at the championships and retired from racing as an Australian Veterans Champion.

 After Dave finally retired from racing he continued his involvement in the sport as the Wagga Cycling Club’s official lap scorer and bell ringer where he was a permanent fixture on the infield at the Wagga cycling track, at all of it’s track cycling events, right up until he got sick last year.

 The sport of cycling in our area has certainly benefited from Dave’s involvement over many decades. Larger than life characters like Dave (Buzz) Tucker are legendary and old ‘Buzz’ is a legend and will be sadly missed by all in the Cycling community.

 lynnie9@hotmail.com, jamie_ruler@hotmail.com    

Wagga Cyclists Continue to Bring Home Medals - by Greg Scott

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