My name is Matthew May and I'm a 22-year-old Australian aspiring cyclist, originally from the United Kingdom, living in Perth Western Australia.

I started cycling at the end of 2020 after 11 years of competitive swimming and triathlon where I represented WA at National level. I have made it my long-term goal to make a career as a professional cyclist. I travelled to Europe in 2022 and 2023 to race and gain experience and despite a considerable amount of bad luck with sickness and crashes I demonstrated good potential. On the WA field, I've shown my legs at the 2023 Tour of Margaret River where I won the teams classification and came 2nd overall on GC. At the end of the year, I also won the Tuesday night crit series with one win and two other podiums.

At the start of 2024, I joined the Cycling Development Foundation to move my focus towards the NRS where I have claimed three top 10 finishes at the Tour of Brisbane, Grafton to Inverell, and the u23 Oceania TT with a top 15 at the Melbourne to Warrnambool, which was my NRS debut. Unfortunately I haven't been able to afford to join the team in Europe this year, but these results and my current form point towards a promising end of the year with the Tour of Gippsland, Tasmania, Bright and the Giro Della Donna.

Coming into 2025 I plan to go full gas into Elite Road Nationals where I am hoping that a home crowd will inspire me to demonstrate my full potential before competing in the Pro-Velo League, Australia's new NRS format. If all goes well I am hoping to fly to Spain and compete with a team for the summer and get some results that will put me on the radar and assist my progression to the next step of my career.

Although this is exciting and hopefully looking to be a big year. The biggest roadblock standing in my way is the finance. Up until this point. My entire cycling career has been self-funded with assistance from my family; unfortunately this situation is not sustainable and require more help than I can currently raise in order to commit to the level of training required to compete at such a level.

Due to the amount of travel required to achieve these goals, I spend a lot of time away from home, and visa regulations do not allow me to work overseas. Along with flights, accommodation, food and other general expenses, I'm unfortunately looking at $15,000 - $20,000 at a bare minimum for the year.  

For the time being, I work casually at Pedal Mafia where I try to work as much as possible while balancing my training. I hope by setting this fundraiser up I'll be able to get the boost I need to make my dream a reality. By donating to the fundraiser you have my guarantee that I'll be putting my all into my cycling to make sure I am worth the investment.

While all donations go a long way and are hugely appreciated, a simple share is more than enough. Thank you for taking the time to read and hope you have a good day!