Toby Stewart of Pambula has been picked as a wild card entry into the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup to be held in Cairns, Queensland over April 23-24.  

“It feels pretty good,” he said.

“I’m a bit nervous and excited at the same time.

“It’s a bit of a bonus at the end of the season.”  

The 21-year-old applied for the wild card to show he was interested, then the organisation thought his results were good enough and he was picked.  

With a record like his it is not surprising he attracted the attention of the world cup organisers, as in the last season for Mountain Bike Australia he received a 3rd in Bairnsdale, 6th in Thredbo and came 10th at the National Championships in Bright. 

In Cairns he will be racing in the under 23-year-old category on April 24 and was aware of the challenge facing world-class competitors from the corners of the globe.

“If I’m good enough I could win, but I’m not,” Stewart said.

“I just want to finish the race and experience it all.

“Next year I will get more serious with my training.” 

While he said there were about 60 or 70 riders in his category, they were mostly from Europe and as it is a long trek to Australia for a race he did not think all would come for the day.  

Stewart was a little concerned about the weather he will deal with in Cairns, thinking it could be quite humid. 

“But I’ve got four days there so I should have enough time to acclimatise,” he said. 

A lot of help with training has come from his coach, and he has been putting in about 10 hours a week.

“It’s pretty high intensity training, so it’s about as much as I can handle with work,” he said.

“But the people I’m racing will have been doing 20 hours a week.

“I’m still probably the strongest I’ve been in my life.” 

The ex-Eden Marine High School student started riding bikes when he was about five, but did not get serious about it until he was 12 and started training after school.

“Probably the reason I started riding was because I hurt myself on a motorbike and needed something to keep fit,” Stewart said.  

Next year he hoped to get a part time job to spend more time training, as he currently works full time at Steeline in Pambula so does not have enough free hours to get on a bike and go for a pedal.