The 70s and 80s were a great time to be an Aussie bloke. There was no PC crowd gone mad, you could drink and smoke whenever and wherever the hell you wanted, and the telly told you which brands were the most macho. Morphing from a 70s kid to an 80s teen, I knew exactly what the beer of choice was (in NSW anyway), and it was Tooheys Draught (or ‘New’ if was coming out of a tap and not a tinnie).

It helped that my favourite rugby league team featured heavily in one of the brewer’s commercials, but somehow I never picked up on the cycling-themed ad featuring Tour de France stage winner and Maillot Jaune wearer Phil “Skippy” Anderson. Maybe it was subconsciously beaten from me because, you know, cycling was for poofs and footy was for real blokes. Whatever. But somehow Phil and his splendidly-coiffed mates managed to make riding a pushy seem almost acceptable, as long as there was a slab of cold cans at the end of it.