I can remember the first proper bike I ever owned. It was an old 24 inch, kids road bike that dad got from the tip in Bendigo. We sprayed it fire-truck red together and the marks stayed on the floor at home for years where we didn’t put the newspaper down correctly. It had the three speed Sturmey Archer gears and one of the vintage kilometre counters with the pin that pushed a cog with every wheel rotation. I rode it furiously in the way only a 12 year old could in a desperate chase for kilometres.
I’d get shipped off to dad’s every second weekend in the standard 70s solution to family breakdown and I would ride. Riding in from the backblocks of Epsom into the White Hills Gardens to see the monkey cages and return can’t have been more than a 6k return trip but I would repeat it time and time again.
Like anywhere just north of Bendigo, there were no hills and from memory only a couple of corners to negotiate. I can remember being bitterly disappointed for days the first time I had gotten close to but failed to reach the magical century for the weekend. I am probably less good at remembering the achievement of reaching the century a fortnight later but suspect that I had very tired little legs on the Monday morning.
Dad was inspired enough to pack our lives up onto the back of our bikes one school holidays and we did some long hot days up to Pyramid across to Boort and Donald then over to Halls Gap and back through Stawell. This was probably the trip where I discovered it didn’t matter which direction the road was going, you were always going to be riding into the wind. I think Dad’s knees packed it in shortly after cresting Mount Moliagul on the way home and my drunk Uncle Bob drove out to pick us up in his old Valiant.
I still periodically get that feeling of absolute pure joy from the freedom and escape from life when I am out cycling. Most recently I had an amazing quick weekend escape from Yarraville out to Yea and back home. My everyday commuter maybe a cheap second hand steel frame of Chinese origin but it is fully pimped with 32mm cyclocross tyres rackless panniers and I love her dearly. I did chase kilometres on that first day and tapped out a little over 260km on as much gravel as I could find. Once you get about 10km north of Craigieburn there is little need to ride on any bitumen.
I slept very soundly in my stealth camp just the other side of Tallarook and was bound for home just before sunup on the best dirt roads and the wind hinting at being my friend. I may have been sporting a pretty impressive saddle rash from the previous days effort but the legs felt primed and it was just magic cycling along watching the sun come up in the still morning air, chasing the kangaroos and looking forward to the bakery in Kilmore for some breakfast. It had been a long time since I had felt that free and just lucky to be alive and able to do what I do.
I did get to do the Ride to Conquer Cancer last year for Dad and it was much more than just raising the measly amount of money that I did scrape together with the awesome help and generosity of others. It was Dad that got me onto the bicycle in the first place and created that sense of adventure that the bicycle provides and inspires. When he had very little money, he still bought me books on Sir Earnest Shackleton and Sir Edmund Hillary and he loved those stories and grand achievements through perseverance and endurance.
When I talk about going off and doing a long ride to somewhere a bit different, I find it is either something people get immediately or something they will never understand. Sir Edmund Hilary, one of the most inspirational men of my lifetime was always being asked why he climbed mountains, I am guessing by people who didn't understand. I suspect that he just enjoyed being out there. I never feel more connected, vulnerable and yet engaged than when I am on my bicycle and above all I just enjoy being out there.
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