I enjoy riding bikes... both the "pedal powered" and the motorised versions.

I remember riding my first bike around in Golden Square, Bendigo at only 5yrs of age. I rode to school on my own an had many great adventures on my bike.

I've owned many different bikes, including the famous 3 speed dragster, so popular in the 70's. I managed to survive a few crashes on those early machines and still enjoy riding today.

In 1979, at age 14, I moved to the Netherlands with my family and soon found myself cycling almost everywhere I went. Anyone who knows anything about Holland, know they love to ride bikes.... There are millions of them everywhere!

My brother and I would ride to school together, 12km each way, even in the middle of winter (zero degrees C or less!). Sometimes we were able to make very good time by tailgating tractors and small trucks on the local service roads.... sometimes getting up to speeds of 40+ km/h on big, heavy old 'daily commuter' type bikes with only 3 gears.

At age 16, I upgraded to mopeds. Local laws restricted these "sewing machines" to a maximum speed of just 40 km/h. If you remember the paragraph above, you'll understand why this wasn't exactly exciting. But, as the 'resourceful' young teenager that I was, I soon found a few way to 'fix' some of the built in restrictions.... eventually cranking the little 50cc Honda up to over 100km/h maximum speed (with a tail wind!).

Two years later, I started riding 'real' motorcycles, starting with a 1979 Honda XL250s. Over the years, I gradually moved up to bigger and better machines. I owned a variety makes including models from Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha & Suzuki, ranging from 250 to 1200cc. Photos

At various times during the past 20+ years, I have owned and used a variety of push bikes. These bikes have been used for general day-to-day transport and/or more specific tasks (like working as a bicycle courier in Melbourne for a while).

About 5 years ago, I purchased a new Kojima KM3000 Mountain Bike and used it to ride to work (sometimes). This bike still gets used on a regular basis.

Towards the end of 2005 I decided it was time get back in shape... about 20kg worth of 'shape'. I purchased a Haro Zero so I could do some 'trials' riding and spend some time with my kids at the BMX track. I enjoyed this so much and was so successful (almost) at getting back in shape that I went out and ordered a 'real' mountain bike a few months later : It was a 2005 Specialized Demo 9 More on this later...

In January 2006, I decided to starting riding with a local group of riders on Sunday mornings. Most of the riders used 'road' bikes and I soon managed to obtain good second hand road bike from a friend. It was a Repco Victory Tri-A. Sunday rides quickly became regular (almost daily) rides, alone or with others. We even held weekly time trials. This in turn lead to running and swimming. Before I knew what happenned, I had agreed to participate in our Triathlon: 400m Swim, 16km Cycle, 5km run. (What was I thinking???)

Unfortunately, due to various circumstances, I stopped riding, running & swimming only weeks after the Triathlon in March last year.

But then something nice happened.... You can read about it here.