Mike O'Connor
In just a few short years, Sydney’s Pastries Cycling Club has grown into one of the city’s biggest cycling communities, without losing sight of what made it popular in the first place: great rides, great food and great company.
We spoke to co-founder Anthony Nguyen about the ingredients behind the club’s remarkable success.
Bicycling Australia: Tell us how it got started and what the original idea behind the club was.
Anthony: I don’t think we ever set out to grow the club into what it is today. It really started with a small group of about 10 or 15 friends who enjoyed riding together on weekends. [My friend and co-founder] Josh Kwan and I were probably foodies before we were cyclists. We’d spend a lot of time hunting down bakeries and cafés around Sydney, and the bike just became the best way to get there.
As life happened, people got busier, started families and stopped riding as regularly. Eventually it was mostly just Josh and me. We figured there had to be other people in Sydney who wanted people to ride with, so in 2022 we decided to open things up.
We started a public WhatsApp group, created a Strava club and began sharing more of what we were doing on social media through Instagram and YouTube.
There wasn’t a grand business plan behind it. We simply wanted to build the kind of cycling community we wished existed, a place where anyone could turn up, enjoy a ride, have a coffee afterwards and meet new people. Looking back, those were really the first building blocks of what Pastries has become.
Bicycling Australia: And now it’s ballooned into this big community. Did you ever imagine it would be as popular as it has turned out to be?
Anthony: Definitely not. We’d ridden with plenty of clubs around Sydney and most of them were relatively small, maybe a WhatsApp chat with a few dozen people who all knew each other. We thought if we could create something similar, but a little more welcoming for people who didn’t already have a cycling group, that would be a success.
Instead, it just kept growing. People weren’t only turning up once. They were coming back every week and bringing friends with them. Today we’ve got more than 2,500 members in the community, which is something we never expected.
What surprised us most was how many people were looking for exactly that sort of social connection. They weren’t necessarily chasing racing or structured training. They simply wanted to ride with good people in a welcoming environment. I think that’s what’s driven the growth more than anything else.
Bicycling Australia: Tell me about what a typical ride looks like.
Anthony: It’s evolved enormously over the years. In the early days it was very simple. Everyone would meet, ride together in one group, stop at a bakery and that was pretty much it. There wasn’t much planning because there weren’t many of us.
As we’ve grown, we’ve had to become much more organised. We now run four pace groups on our regular rides, with ride leaders for each group, because managing large bunches safely requires a lot more organisation.
We also expect people to take some personal responsibility.
We ask members to ride predictably, look after the people around them and come with the right attitude. We’ve also introduced mandatory insurance through AusCycling because it gives everyone peace of mind if something goes wrong.
Even with that growth, the atmosphere hasn’t changed. The goal is still the same as it was on day one. Ride your bike, stop for great coffee and pastries, and spend time with good people.
Bicycling Australia: A lot of traditional cycling clubs are finding it difficult to attract younger riders and grow their membership. Why do you think Pastries has been able to buck that trend?
Anthony: It’s something Josh and I have spoken about a lot. Traditional clubs have played an incredibly important role in Australian cycling, and many are built around racing. We even have our own racing team. But the reality is that not everyone wants to pin on a number every weekend.
For a lot of people, cycling is about much more than training. It’s about exploring new places, discovering great cafés, meeting people and sharing experiences. We recognised that pretty early and built the club around those things. The ride itself is important, but what happens before and after the ride is just as valuable.
Social media has also changed the way people discover cycling. Instead of seeing it as something intimidating or exclusive, people can see exactly what our rides are like. They see a welcoming group of riders, different ability levels, great locations and everyone sitting around afterwards over coffee and pastries. That makes it much easier for someone to picture themselves joining in.
Josh and I spend a surprising amount of time talking about ideas beyond just the ride itself. We actually took a small pastries group over to Girona/Mallorca and we joke that the final frontier is the Tour De France, not just to ride bikes but to experience everything that goes with it.
Maybe it’s visiting wineries, exploring small towns or spending time together after the ride. Cycling is the reason we come together, but it’s the experiences and friendships that keep people involved.
I think clubs that embrace that broader community aspect will continue to attract new riders. For many people today, belonging to a community is every bit as important as performance.
Bicycling Australia: It seems like social media has played a pretty important role in that growth.
Anthony: It’s been huge. Josh has done an incredible job with YouTube [link], telling the longer stories of our rides, while I focus more on Instagram and short-form content. One thing we’ve always tried to do is make the content about the community rather than about ourselves.
For us it’s not about creating polished marketing videos. It’s about showing what a real Saturday morning ride looks like, introducing members of the community and showing that cycling can be social, welcoming and fun.
If someone watches one of our videos and thinks, “That looks like something I’d actually enjoy,” then we’ve achieved exactly what we set out to do.
Bicycling Australia: Running something this size must take up a lot of your time now.
Anthony: It definitely does. When it was just a handful of friends there wasn’t much to organise. Now there’s ride planning, communications, sponsors, insurance, volunteer management and everything else that comes with running a community this size.
Before Pastries, I spent about ten years working in corporate finance. I took what was meant to be a one-year career break, got deeper into cycling, met Josh and we started the club. That one-year break has now turned into several years because I realised this is what I genuinely enjoy doing.
Pastries itself is still very much a passion project. I work as a freelance content creator, and the club is supported by an incredible group of volunteers. We have around 25 ride leaders who give up their time every week, along with fantastic partners and sponsors who help make everything possible.
What I’m most proud of isn’t how many people are in the club. It’s seeing the friendships that have formed because of it. There is an ongoing joke that when we have two cyclists who met and are now together because of Pastries. Cycling brought us together, but it’s the community that’s kept everyone coming back.
Bicycling Australia: Finally, for someone who’s never heard of Pastries, what would you want them to know about the club?
Anthony: I’d say we’re a very friendly and welcoming club that puts just as much emphasis on the experience off the bike as the ride itself. If you’re looking for a group that enjoys cycling but also values the café stop, great food and spending time together afterwards, that’s what we’re all about.
At the same time, we’re not just a casual coffee ride. The club is very friendly and welcoming, but we’ve evolved to the stage where we’re not for beginners anymore. The rides are really aimed at intermediate riders and we expect all of our riders to be self-sufficient.
We don’t cater to everyone, but that’s okay because the Sydney Cycling scene is booming right now and there will be a club out there for everyone.
For us, it’s about bringing those two worlds together. You can head out for a challenging ride, then park the bikes, grab a pastry and a coffee, and spend an hour chatting afterwards. That social side isn’t an afterthought. It’s a huge part of why people keep coming back, and it’s something we’d love the club to be remembered for.
One of the most rewarding things has been seeing how many people from overseas have found us. Because of social media, people often discover Pastries before they even arrive in Sydney. We regularly have riders from the UK, Europe and elsewhere who join us after relocating, and many arrive thinking Sydney is a difficult or intimidating place to ride.
One of the first things I’ll ask them is whether they’ve found a group to ride with yet, because having that community changes everything. You quickly learn the best routes, build confidence riding in the city and realise just how good the cycling scene is here. Watching people settle into a new city through the club has been incredibly rewarding.
Ultimately, whether you’re new to cycling, new to Sydney or you’ve been riding your whole life, we want people to feel like they can turn up, be welcomed and become part of something. That’s always been the goal, and I think that’s what makes Pastries special.
Find out more about PastriesCC’s here.
Mike O’Connor – A keen cyclist, runner and photographer, Mike O’Connor is the Editor of Bicycling Australia. He manages the BA website and social media, and loves promoting the achievements of Australian cyclists.
