my life on a bicycle

As a child, I rode a bicycle regularly from the age of eight until I was a teenager. When not kicking a soccer ball, I�d cycle around the suburb after school and on Saturday morning I�d ride the eight kilometres to my football game. A bicycle gave me independence and a finely-tuned sense of adventure. Mum didn�t care where I went, as long as I was home for dinner. My brother and I would venture to a nearby suburb where there was an aerodrome. We'd alternate between cycling over the sand hills down by the creek and watching the planes taking off. I liked planes but I loved my bicycle.
When I was a teenager, my parents moved house. I didn�t want to change high schools, so I embarked on a twelve kilometre round-trip each day on my bike. It seemed entirely natural to spend every morning and afternoon on a bike. I reasoned I only had six months until I could leave school anyway.

And then I had to go and spoil it all by getting a job and buying a car. The bicycle rusted in the shed. The car promised late-nights with my girlfriend and the allure of the beach every week-end. 
I didn�t jump back in the saddle until I moved to Sydney, near penniless and in need of transport. I bought a cheap drop-bar steel monster and rode it around Newtown where I lived. 

I was a hipster thirty years before my time! 

Usually I cycled at night, on footpaths venturing between parties in the inner-city. No lights, no helmet and a very natty clip to stop my trousers getting caught in the chain. 
I had my first accident on that bike. A motorist crossed in front of me at College Street in Sydney, ironically where Duncan Gay recently ripped up an integral part of Sydney's bicycle infrastructure.
I wasn't hurt in the accident, but the front wheel was buckled beyond repair. Although the motorist was clearly in the wrong, they refused to pay. Some things never change. I replaced the wheel but eventually, the old steel bike was lost somewhere between share houses. Perhaps it�s still chained to a tree in a backyard in Surry Hills?

A few years later, I moved to the Blue Mountains with my wife and children and bought a cheap Trek mountain bike. I�d take it out of the shed once every three months, ride along a bush track for a few kilometres before deciding I was too old for cycling. I tried to keep fit by playing soccer. Alas, one game a week wasn�t enough to balance the inordinate amount of food I enjoyed eating. I put on weight.

When Cathie and I arrived back from a trip to Italy in 2010, I stood on the scales. 

I weighed eighty-five kilos, more than I had ever done in my fifty-one years of plonking around the planet. It was winter in the mountains. Pulling on baggy track pants, a t-shirt, a polartec sweater and a rain jacket, I wheeled the trusty mountain bike out of the shed and set off. Ten kilometres of up and downhill later, I was dry-retching under the cedar tree in the backyard. My marshmallow legs wobbled in time with my stomach as I returned the bike to the shed.

The next day I was back in the saddle. This time I reached twelve kilometres. Or should that read, �This time I retched twelve kilometres?�

Over the next month, I slowly increased the distance until I rode to the bike shop three suburbs away. Hanging from the wall of the shop, I spied a fetching red hybrid bike with twenty-one gears and road tyres, much more suited to the cycling I was doing. Already I was blaming the bike for my inadequacies. 

I bought the red bike and christened it Craig, after Jenny Craig, the weight-loss guru.

A year later, after sharing eight thousand kilometres with Craig, I was a confirmed cycling nutter. I wore lycra shorts and a lurid green jersey. I weighed seventy-five kilos. I�d lost ten kilos in a year of happy movement. I took Craig with me on holiday to France and we shared a lovely time cycling across the country and up and down a few mountains. 
I came home and told Cathie all about Craig and my adventures. She decided to swap belly-dancing costumes for lycra, just to see what all the fuss was about. We returned to Europe together and bought a bicycle for Cathie, christened Jenny, of course. 
After a few days in the cycling nirvana that is Europe, Cathie was hooked.
By now, I'd already added to my bike collection with a carbon-fibre dream that went faster than absolutely necessary, christened Roubaix. It's the bike I ride every day when I'm home.

Six years after re-discovering my love of the bicycle, I�ve compiled some statistics, all recorded on my Garmin. I�ve cycled over 48,000 kilometres and used - according to the rather unreliable calorie-counter - 1,185,000 calories. I quickly add that I�ve eaten double that amount in fuel to keep cycling. 

However, my favourite statistic is the elevation gained - I�ve climbed 548,500 metres - the equivalent of cycling up the famous Tour de France mountain, Col du Galibier 210 times. Here�s a video of the only time I did actually cycle up this monster. 

The bicycle has taught me that no mountain is too steep. With a lightweight carbon frame, lots of gears and a stomachful of French food, I know that by pedalling slowly for an hour or two, I can reach the summit of any peak. I won�t break any time trials, but the point of cycling is surely taking time to appreciate the view. Wobbling up a mountain gives me lots of time.

Perhaps the most surprising aspect of my love of the bicycle is how it�s given me a new career. With five travel books to my credit, I can now probably call myself a travel writer, and an occasional columnist on all matters cycling. While I�m not planning to give up writing children�s books any time soon, it�s nice to know that for three months of the year, I can devote myself to the bicycle and travel. 

In my study, Cathie and I look at Google maps and plot our next journey. After cycling in Norway last year, Cathie is no longer intimidated by mountains. She too understands the joy and simplicity of cycling. 

This week, I�m returning to the local bike shop. As I live just a few hundred metres from the off-road joy of Narrow Neck plateau, I think it�s time to buy a mountain bike. The old Trek I started cycling on again six years ago was taken to Brisbane by my son, Jack. Craig is resting in a barn somewhere in France. My long-distance touring bicycle is packed away waiting for our next trip, so I think there�s just enough room in my study for one more bicycle.

The only thing I have learnt with absolute certainty in my fifty-seven years on this planet is that a bicycle is for commuting, for keeping healthy, but most of all for having fun. 

I can�t think of a better invention.







I've written five cycling travel books which are all available here for USA readers, here for UK readers and here for readers in Australia.