Big Wheels Keep On Turnin'

The Age

Wednesday April 18, 2001

Alan Attwood

BEGAN the day with a bike ride. Put the bike out the front the night before so I wouldn't wake the neighbors. The bike doesn't make any noise; it's the dog that's the problem. The dog goes ape when he sees or hears the bike being wheeled down the side path.

I'm not exactly sure why. It could be jealousy, pure and simple, and a dog mightily peeved that a bike's getting a walk while he isn't. Perhaps that's why he tries to bite the tyres. Or it could be something in the genes: the dog's trying to round up the bike. Circling and barking and nipping. Then yowling in frustration under the house when the bike gets away.

So I planned ahead. Put the bike on the porch under darkness. Took the dog around the block. Distracted the dog out the back with a biscuit. Then made my getaway.

It was a lovely morning for a ride. The strollers were out. So too the joggers, the dog-walkers and the serious bicycle people. The ones wearing lairy-colored outfits, too-tight shorts and tap-dancing shoes. They gather in packs on the corner near the beach, talking punctures and headwinds and the latest things in wheels. Then they get on their gleaming machines, like John Wayne mounting his horse, and pedal off to Brisbane and back again, in time for tea.

I try to avoid eye-contact when I squeak past the serious bike people. I feel like the busker who takes a wrong turn and ends up in the symphony orchestra rehearsal room. My clothes are all wrong, my shoes don't have hard bits on the bottom, and the bike - well, I've been trying to work it out - must be coming up to 20 years old. I hear that there have been a few advances in bicycle technology in that time.

But the old bike's whirring along quite nicely. The tyres get pumped up from time to time, clunking bits get some oil, and that's about it for maintenance. This would appal the serious bike people, but I don't give them a chance to check out the snazzy strips of yellow tape that hide the worst of the rust marks. I leave them to their training ride and head further down, to the bike path.

The bike world is divided into two groups: those who take to the open road and bike-path people. I used to be a regular on the roads. (Sorry, fella, but yes that was me a while back trying to squeeze through a too-small gap and clipping your side mirror.) But then I grew weary of cars and trucks whizzing past just a few centimetres away, and stick to bike paths when I can these days.

Not because they're safer, or the ride more sedate. Oh no. The challenges are different. True, there's not the ever-present threat of car doors opening, but instead there's a wondrous array of potential hazards. Pedestrians. Kids. Dogs. And roller-bladers. Always some roller-bladers. In theory they are meant to co-exist peacefully with cyclists on the bike paths, but in practice this co-existence is as harmonious as it is on the West Bank.

I'm all for roller-bladers getting their exercise. I accept that they're permitted on bike paths, so long as they remember who got there first. I just wish that they wouldn't try so hard to occupy both lanes at once with their bent-over-low, left-right-left-right manoeuvre.

As for all the bozos who like to work on this left-right roller-blade routine while travelling backwards, I'm here to tell you that next time I'm not swerving on to the grass to avoid you.

Actually, the other morning the bike-path traffic was light. The main hazard came from bleary-eyed folk near St Kilda who looked like they'd made a night of it. They tended to wander blindly across the path towards the water. Either contemplating a wake-up dip or simply trying to work out where they were, and how they got there.

At the pier, I rode down to the cafe, which wasn't yet open, and stopped awhile to see what was happening. Not a lot. A few fishermen were out; so, too, some power-walkers with hand-held weights, and a couple of tourists with maps and cameras. If they were in St Kilda so early in the day, I had confidence in them making it to the Dandenongs for afternoon tea.

My return ride was uneventful. The highlight was overtaking a woman rider with sit-up handlebars on a straight stretch of path. Not quite Schumacher and Coulthard in a Grand Prix, but enough to give me my speed fix for the day. And to prove I'm not a complete lair, I wished her good morning as I panted past.

Back home again I made up with the dog, who was giving my bike the look Glenn Close saved for the wife in Fatal Attraction, then got ready for another cycling interlude. The youngest boy is learning to ride. He gave it away last year after mastering the basics, having decided he could ride a bit on a vacant school playground but nowhere else, but recently he's bounced back into it.

The trainer-wheels are off, the helmet is on, and he's away. Wobbling down the footpath, but picking up speed and confidence as he gets going. Stopping and cornering still present some problems (falling off, then turning around is his preferred technique) but he's getting better all the time.

Won't be long now before he, too, takes to the bike path. It'll suit him. Not many sharp corners. Nice and flat too, so he won't have to worry about losing pace going uphill. So listen up, Billy Barechest. Yes, you. King of the backwards roller-bladers in Elwood. I have a deputy. We've formed a posse. And we're coming right at you.