A cycling story
Once a cycling nut, always a cycling nut!
I got my first bike at the age of twelve or so. It cost a pound, second hand and needed new tyres and brakes. I sandpapered the rust spots and painted it (red of course). It represented FREEDOM and soon riding consumed every spare minute. I became what was known as a “skid kid”. It’s a term I haven;’t heard for a good half-century. My mates and I would meet at the large paddock behind the school that had large areas devoid of grass and have improvised races on tight courses that required all sorts of insane bicycle acrobatics.
That’s when, with my friend Terry Freckleton we acquired a motorcycle- a 1928 Royal Enfield. We were both perhaps 12 or 13, so that meant no licence, no registration and we couldn’t afford a back tyre. No worries: we created a track around his back yard. Hard on the accelerator and spin the wheel knowing takeoff would occur when the heads of the spokes dug in to the soil. A hair-raising ride! All went well until Terry’s dad decided he’d like a ride. When he crashed into his aviary full of exotic birds, that put the immediate kibosh on that idea! His actual words as I recall them were ’It’s a death trap.’
Longer and longer bike rides became the norm and I got my first road bike. Soon I was riding to work from my home at Punchbowl to Rosebery, a distance of some 25 kilometers each way. Being a bit competitive by nature I enjoyed racing anyone I met along the way. I discovered that it was a great way to get fit and that riding made me feel good. Quite often in summer my lifelong friend Les Hewitt and I would go for a ride after I’d ridden home.
Les decided he wanted to give track racing a try (I’ve no idea why). The problem was, his mother vetoed the idea. Les was (and is) one of those quietly determined people who find ways around such minor obstacles.
‘If Ron’s mother lets him race, will you let me ride,’ he asked innocuously. Now Les’ mum was no pushover, but she must have been gullible enough to presume my mum would can the idea, taking the heat off her. So Les went to work on my mother without bothering to inform me about the plan (he’s a respected Uniting Church minister now, but scruples seem to have eluded him on this one occasion). My mum apparently agreed without demur (so Les says). My turn. He finally got around to laying the plan on me.
‘You only need to ride once or twice, then you can give it away once I start,’ he explained. ‘I can tell my mum you didn’t like it.' let’s go and have a look at it at least.’ So I went with Les to Wiley Park velodrome and was hooked on the speed, the close racing and the danger.
Cycle racing soon became an obsession. For a few years I’d race anyone, any time.
Cycling also led me to the love of my life. I was out training with my cousin Bob Rodger and Les when Bob went straight over the handlebars, taking plenty of skin off, right opposite a house where three gorgeous girls were sitting on the front verandah. To this day, friends and family are inclined to the be suspicious that I engineered the whole thing. I am prepared to admit that I chose to make the most of Bob’s misfortune. When opportunity knocks, I try to be quick to answer! Sixty-seven years later we’re still an item. Not long after that, I decided I needed a car. It was a 1952 Holden and it kind of torpedoed my cycling career. It seemed a much nicer way to transport the girlfriend and to get to work, particularly on rainy days.
Fast forward forty-three years. From the age of twenty-two until sixty-six, I didn’t own a bike. Then my daughter Kylie decided to embark on a triathlon career and the call of two wheels bit again.
So I borrowed a bike and off I pedaled. Some comeback! Then it got worse. When I retired from work, I got back on that bike. I was approaching seventy, a time when sensible people give up dangerous sports. The urge to race again bit me and I soon decided I had unfinished business on two wheels. The Master’s Games in Adelaide was coming up and I rashly targeted that at age 70 and began to train hard.
I came home with four gold medals and one bronze, and a sense of achievement. I just love that bike!
More recently I’ve been copping some family flack. The general opinion is that it’s indecent for an eighty-year-old to be riding amid the traffic. So, for my 80th, my present was a video trainer. That’s had me riding a Tour De France stage in the comfort of our spare bedroom with Willy Nelson turned up loud on Spotify as I tear through the roads of Europe. But at least I’m still riding and I don’t intend to stop any time soon!