History of Bayside Triathlon Club

The Bayside Triathlon Club (BTC), “The Sharks”, was established 17 June 1990 by a couple of Triathlon loving friends, to fill the Triathlon club void between Melbourne and Mornington. The demand was so big that immediately 47 people registered and by August the membership had increased to 90.

The annual membership fee was $25. The run training was held in Dandy Park under coach Wayne Clarke, swim coaching at the King Club with Graham Mills. The weekend ride was at a civilized 9:00 start, compared to the 6:00 start nowadays. Also, an afternoon option was on offer.

The Club was social, with the first social function attracting 50 members turning up at Taco Bill. At the first committee meeting held on 15 August, almost the whole committee introduced themselves to the members as single, leading to the first proposal of the night to rename the club to “Bayside Triathlon Singles Club”. However, this motion was defeated. The club organized its first getaway – a ski trip to Mt. Buller – which was much fun and delivered many told and untold stories.

The first club clothing colour scheme was Blue, Fluoro Orange, and Fluoro Green, yep that was 'in', in the day. The Bayside Sharks started to participate successfully in Interclub swim and Aquathlon events, with their catch cry “EAT ‘EM UP!”

Hardship hit the club in February 1991 when the newly appointed newsletter editor, Jeremy Long, father of four, was involved in a collision with a vehicle that caused permanent injury. In February 1992 the club was hit again by misfortune, when Marcus Galbraith died on the long weekend, after the Queenscliff Triathlon during a training ride for the Hawaii Ironman. Marcus was only 23 years old.

The famous Frankstone Long Course Triathlon was still running and around 10 Sharks participated with the best male and female coming 3rd and 5th in their age group. Back in this time athletes who changed clothing could be disqualified for nudity! At that time there were around 30 Triathlon clubs in Victoria with a total of around 1500 members.

1993 Enter Bayside Triathlon club - "The Sharks" becomes BTC.

The BTC membership number went well over 100 and great performances continued, with 3 members even qualifying for Hawaii. Monthly getaways to Victorian countryside took place to escape the weekly Beach Road grind. BTC ran a successful Aquathlon series with 3 races to raise funds for the club.

In the BTC meeting on 17 May 93, it was announced that BTC could use the club rooms at Sandringham Life Saving Club. Beside new club rooms, the club introduced a new club logo and clothing in July 1993 this time in the navy and fluoro yellow which stood out and made us look fast even if we weren’t.

In 2012, The Bayside Triathlon Club amalgamated with the Taylormade Triathlon Club. Taylormade Triathlon Club was formed in the summer of 1992 and was involved in developing and delivering a kid’s triathlon as part of a Triathlon Victoria initiative, Go-Tri-It and the TriWIT (Women in Triathlon) program. Taylormade was born out of founding member Jeremy Taylor’s desire to create a vehicle for novice triathletes to become involved in triathlon in a non-threatening, fun and supportive environment. Triathlon Victoria Life member and past CEO Sally Ham was coach and secretary of the Taylormade Triathlon Club for 8 years.

Christian Steguweit, Bayaide’s current Duathlon Race Director, was a key driver in the joint venture with Taylormade. An important moment in both club’s histories was the amalgamation and it allowed the clubs to align their values and benefit in spreading the workload of the committee.

The committees believed that the Taylormade philosophy of being a vehicle for novice triathletes to be introduced to the sport in a friendly way would be a good balance to the 'Ironman club' reputation Bayside had. Merging the clubs would allow the continued focus on novices and the opportunity to progress within the single club and significantly the history and contribution of Taylormade would be forever a part of Bayside’s history.

The Bayside Triathlon Club amalgamated with the Taylormade Triathlon Club in 2012. Below is a summary from Taylormade founder, Jeremy Taylor, providing a history of Taylormade and the Club's culture.

The Taylormade Triathlon Club was formed in the summer of 1992 as a number of key moments came together in my life. My friend John Watson and I had been racing in this new sport for a few years, yet after each race was coming to realize that the camaraderie of team sports was missing. I enrolled in Deakin’s Graduate Sports Science program, meeting the larger than life Michael Coldham in the process. And finally, as I was mentoring my work’s BRW teams that year, I completed my Level 1 coaching course with TriVic and became involved with their TriWIT (Women in Triathlon) program. Taylormade was born out of my desire to pull these all together to create a vehicle for novice triathletes to become involved in our wonderful sport in a non-threatening, fun (thanks to Michael) and supportive environment.

As my daughter, Jade was born in 1993 & I became a stay-at-home dad, I had the time to devote to growing its membership. As the internet was just a dream back then I advertised with flyers in Tim Marquardt’s TM Leisure snail mail race results (whose company has now morphed into the XOSize Tri-Series), but more importantly, our numbers swelled through word of mouth via our satisfied group of close-knit athletes. Foundation members included David Tolliday (future TriVic President), and club Life members Sally Ham (future CEO of TriVic) and Bruce Bruton, a newcomer to triathlon who would become our first World Championship participant & head coach.

Not only did we train & race together, but we also traveled together. As the numbers grew to a high of near 100 in the late ’90s, we did race trips to the Noosa triathlon festival and the Shepparton and Canberra half ironmans. We even tackled the Foster Ironman! We held training camps (does golf count?) at Michael’s beach house in Peterborough. And we had long weekends at the Lorne and Portsea swims, had record numbers in Bicycle Victoria’s Round the Bay in a Day event, traveled to Bright for the Audax Alpine Classic and entered the Melbourne half and full marathons. 

When TriVic needed Melbourne Clubs to continue to hold its winter duathlon series, Taylormade offered to host the inaugural Richmond race and has been doing so ever since. Together with Bayside Triathlon Club, we hosted the Brighton race of TriVic’s kids Go-Tri-It series. We were also the first club to convince Race Directors to offer "club" waves in their final series race as a way of holding defacto club championships.

After 13 years at the helm of Taylormade, in 2005 with my children now at school, work commitments growing, I decided to step down as President and head coach of the club. Rob Douglas became the new President, and with a motivated committee, it continued on, still holding to the Taylormade philosophy of a vehicle for novice triathletes to be introduced to the sport in a friendly way. In closing my chapter of Taylormade I would just to thank all our members both current and past who helped make Taylormade what it was. You made a difference to so many people’s lives and aided in the creation of a wonderfully supportive group of athletes and lifetime friends. We have had marriages and babies and that is a true blessing. I would especially like to recognize both Sally and Bruce, key driving forces behind our ongoing success - I could not have done it without you, you have certainly enriched my life and I know the Club has been a very important and meaningful part of yours. I trust the merger of Taylormade and Bayside will be a strong union and continue to be a local venue that encourages novice triathletes to join a club and become involved in our great sport.

Finally, I would like to thank my family, who supported all the crazy things I became involved with during the Taylormade years. We came full circle when Jade and I competed as a team in the Melbourne Ironman this year – triathlon truly is a wonderful sport.

Jeremy Taylor