Why Bicycle? A Brief History

I got my first bike - a Malvern Star - from Mum and Dad when I was a kid. It was fun riding up, down and around our cul-de-sac with all the neighbour kids, but I suspect my parent's motive was not so much my entertainment, as a way to avoid having to drive their kids around everywhere. I soon found I was obliged to take myself by bike off to ballet class and most other extra curricular activities.


Photo: Photobucket

Even when I was chased and bitten by a local dog, the bike rule stood.

Nevertheless, I am grateful for my parents apathy and cruelty, because I learned the important art of bike riding and developed a healthy fear of dogs.

As a grown-up, when I inherited some family member's hand-me-down racing bike and decided to give it a try, it was - well - pretty much just like riding a bike. Learning to ride for the first time as an adult would be about as much fun as trying to use chopsticks for the first time – with your left hand – at a very important dinner.

I took up cycling again in my 20's mostly for fitness, and novelty. When I lived in the inner city there was the added parking bonus. Brilliant for errands, cycling was a quick door to door method, without any of that driving round and around the block looking for a park.

In the 21st century, with climate change the new black and people adapting their lifestyles to help reduce global warming, cycling is fashionable, chic bike shops are popping up everywhere, and I'm more motivated than ever to leave the car at home.

I recently went for 6 months without buying petrol and - even though my colleagues, when I told them this, looked at me with a speechless kind of disbelief mixed with a fear that I could well be insane - I'm proud of that.

Now, on any day when I'm feeling tired, or it's too cold, too sunny, might rain, I remember the state of the planet and figure it probably won't kill me to cycle up that hill again today.