Wollongong hosted the 2022 UCI Road World Championships, and for a week the city's coastal roads turned into a closed circuit packed with the best riders in the world. Getting accredited meant access to the course, the rider areas and the kind of vantage points you don't get as a spectator on the other side of the barrier.
The individual time trials were the easiest to plan for. Riders go off one at a time, the course is marked out clearly, and there's time between runs to reposition. Stefan Küng, Filippo Ganna and Remco Evenepoel all came through at speed along the Mapei-sponsored finishing straight, and the contrast in styles up close, Ganna's raw power, Evenepoel's stillness on the bike, was the kind of detail you only really notice from the roadside.
The road race was a different challenge entirely. Once the peloton hits a long climb or a technical section, the whole group strings out and the gaps open up fast. Getting Tadej Pogačar and Wout van Aert together in the same frame during the breakaway took being in the right spot before the group arrived, not reacting once they'd already passed.
Crowds were heaviest on the climbs and around the finish line, which meant some of the best shots came from quieter stretches of the course where the peloton was still bunched tight, before the road started sorting riders into the front and back groups.
It's the kind of event that rewards knowing the course better than the riders do — or at least knowing where you can stand to see what actually matters when it happens.