Now, he is about to be weighed down by an award, not that he knows what he did to win it.
Oakden, the Cycling Otago club captain, won the fair play award at Cycling New Zealand awards at the weekend.
He said the award was "out of the blue", but it was nice.
"You don't do anything just to win awards. No-one does, but it is nice to be recognised," he said.
Oakden (45) began cycling as a youth then came back to the sport more than 15 years ago to try to lose weight after he ballooned to more than 120kg.
The weight dropped off and he has stayed on the bike ever since.
Oakden said he just wanted to help the sport and get people involved in it.
"I suppose I help out a bit when races are on . . . put out signs and help riders out when they need some help. I've done my time with being really competitive.
"Cycling runs out of volunteers quite quickly. Those signs can be quite heavy and cycling is all about conserving energy, so no-one wants to put them out in the morning of a race . . . But we've got a great group down here who really help each other out."
He suspects the nomination may have come after his efforts at a race at Dunback a couple of months ago when he helped a struggling group get across the finish line.
"Cycling is hard. If you want to be any good at it, you've got to work extremely hard. And you can go out for a couple of Saturdays on the Taieri and get dropped. A lot of people don't come back," he said.
Oakden, a personal trainer who does the odd bit of cycle coaching, said cycling was like many sports in that it had trouble attracting young people into the sport and found it hard to field enough officials.
"In some way I don't know how you can get nominated for fair play, as there are never any officials out there to see what you are doing."
Oakden said there was a good core competitive group in Dunedin who raced most Saturdays.
He said he was not upset at not being shouted a trip to Wellington to pick up the award, as "they are better off spending the money on some young fellas".
The Wakatipu Cycling Club in Central Otago was awarded the best little club award, while world champion Alison Shanks won the Shona Smith award for best contribution to women's cycling in the past year.
Shanks' coach, Craig Palmer, won the personal coach of the year honour.
