Terang's Jamie Drew reflects on his career as a professional cyclist

The sticker reminded him he could be working for a living and after eating his breakfast he'd head out motivated to improve.

The Terang export, who now lives in Sydney with his wife Annabelle, still has the motivation to ride and enjoys doing it but there is now no fridge sticker to spur him on days with unfavourable weather.

Drew's cycling nowadays involves causal rides with friends and the occasional club race but the love for the sport is still there.

The 47-year-old, who works as a Broadcast Solutions Architect at the ABC, has fond memories of his time travelling the world with his bike.

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During his professional career her won 15 races - including international stage races at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana in 1995 and 1998 Giro delle Due Province Marciana - and rode for six teams.

In those wins he also secured two victories in his home race - the Melbourne to Warrnambool Cycling Classic in 1999 and 2002. He first rode in the race in 1993.

The 2000 Australian Road Race champion, who completed seven "Warrny's", almost went back-to-back in 2003 finishing second in his final ride in the gruelling one-day classic.

The Terang export also won two Grafton to Inverells in 1997 and '99.

"I had a great time, had some good experiences and met some great people," he said of his career.

"I'm grateful for the travel I got to do. I got to see a large part of the world and Africa is the only continent I haven't raced a bike on.

"I could have gone there to a race in South Africa but I turned it down. There used to be a race in the point of South Africa in January and I'm sorry for myself that I didn't go."

Italy is one of Drew's favourite places to ride a bike and he and wife Annabelle continue to travel over to popular European destination to cycle.

"I've spent a lot of time in Italy as my wife and I do bike tours overseas and we have run one of our own in Tuscany until COVID shut that down recently," he said.

"It's with Top Bike Tours. We've done a couple of Giro d'Italia rides and followed those and have done the Tour of Tuscany where we eat, drink and ride in that order. We enjoy the good food, wine and the lovely country side.

"Annabelle did her first tour in 2006 and mine was in 2008. We've been doing one tour a year since then and sometimes more.

"I really enjoy it. We're comfortable there and I can jump in the car on the correct side of the road and it feels normal.

"We generally have around 13 people. A few years ago we had people from Port Fairy and we went to Sicily for 10 days and did Mount Etna.

"We really enjoy it and meet interesting people. The riders could be a CEO of Telstra or a cleaner but going up a hill, breathing hard everyone is in the same boat and has that connection."

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Racing bike restorer David Francis recently fixed the bike Drew won the 2002 Warrny on and seeing the bike again brought back fond memories.

"I sold it to a family friend after I finished racing and a few years later the bike broke and they kept it all this time and then Dave was keen to fix it up and has done a great job at making it look like new again," he said.

"That bike one of the mechanics on the team he found some photos and built it the hotel room in Malaysia. We flew in and the bike, which was straight from the factory, met us there.

"The mechanic flew over and built it the night before the race in January. We looked like the pro teams and we looked at the bikes and the paint jobs and they were really nice. They were good bikes to ride too.

"I raced in Europe on that bike in 2002. Don't think I won anything good that season as I was with a new team but that's as nice as memory as anything. It was my first year living in Belgium and that was good fun."

Drew's 2000 Australian Road Race victory in Portarlington is one of his career highlights and reflecting over 20 years later wearing the green gold was one of his proudest moments.

"That was pretty special. It was nice for me personally to win the Warrny but winning the Australian titles changed my career," he said.

"I won a stage at the Tour de Langkawi in Malaysia and an American team offered me a contract. Being in the Aussie jersey helped me get seen the next year as the team went onto become a world tour equivalent.

"Having the jersey and wining really helped that. I have a yellow jersey from the (Herald) Sun Tour and the Australian champion's jersey and over the last few years it has been too tight."

The Warrny victories are also special for Drew.

"They were always special and the Warrny was one race I wouldn't sleep night the before and it was the one race I was nervous before," he recalls.

"It was partly fearful (nerves) as it was the one race I wanted to win and would've ridden through a brick wall if I had to. I was so paranoid during the night and afraid I would sleep thorough my alarm.

"Cycling was my job then and winning those races was not part of the job but that was what kept me in it.

"I grew up in Terang and watched the race come through. It was a huge race for the district that I was able to ride in.

"Riding in my first one I came down freeway from Melbourne to Geelong and there was heaps of people on the overpasses cheering us on. It was a pretty amazing feeling."

Drew's other fond memories are of his time racing in the famous Paris-Roubaix one-day cycling classic once during his career.

The south-west export is now happy watching the professionals of today battle it out for glory on TV and getting out on his bike for his causal rides in Sydney's lower north shore.

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