At the end of my first year at school (Grey College Primary School) my parents gave me a bicycle for my birthday. That would have been on the 16th of December during 1955. After a couple of pushes along Thomas Leith Street, I was on my way. What I did not realise was that were I was headed was school, and back again on my bicycle. I had already walked the 2 km route that at that time took a considerable short cut along a lane adjacent to the Bloemfotein Turf Club.

I never got to do those rides as we moved to the Strand were we boarded with my mother's mother. I walked to school. After less than a year in the Strand we left in our brown (ex South African Army) Chevrolet for Durban. A memorable trip that involved 1) hand pumping petrol somehere near Knysna, 2) exchanging cigarettes for Prickly Pear fruit somewhere in the Transkei, and 3) crossing into Natal by fording a large wide river on a pont.

During our shortish stay in Durban I walked from the Private Hotel somewhere in Percy Osborn Street (above the Lion Match Factory) along Percy Osborn Street to Windsor Park Primary School. The next stop was a semi-detatched house in Ladysmith where I was once more able to ride my bike. I did a lot of that with Roger Trail and Errol Larking. There we even went as far as constructing a side car for a bicycle.

The next stop was Alanridge, a new small mining town in the Northern Free State, and the place that my parents finally settled down. It was a great place to grow up and being flat, bicycle heaven. Besides riding all over the town, also fentured out into the surrounding farming areas. The longest trip was on the main road and that took Gavin Hutchinson and myself all the way to Welkom and back.

While I was still in Primary School in Alanridge, I would regularly be sent to the local and only shopping center to buy the paper and a loaf of bread. The bread was a loaf of white Rock n Roll, and it cost 9 cents. I was reminded of the price the other day when I was sent by my wife to buy a loaf of bread. It was a small seeded loaf and I was rather taken aback when the guy said, "that will be R30-00. That is 3000 cents, 333 loaves of Rock n Roll. More bread than my family would probably have eaten in a year (1960) back then.

My high school years were spent as a boarder at Grey College,and there a bicycle was useful for commuting into town to visit the dentist or whatever. Whatever included the girl's schools on a Sunday afternoon.

After that, it was Natal University in Durban, marriage and work. That involved living in Durban, Pinetown and then Pietermaritzburg. There bicycles featured again, but mostly for the next generation that rode extensively, including the commute to school and back. As we only had one car back then, and it because it was used by Mum and Cheryl, Bruce, and Heather, I had two stints on motor Cycles.

The first motor cycle was a Honda CB350, and I used it to commute from Pinetown to work at the Technikon in Durban. My most vivid memories of that bike are: 1) riding home in the pouring rain with buckets of water in my shoes sloshing backwards and forwards as I chnaged gears, and 2) flying over a car that had drived across the road directly in front of me. As I was doing so I could hear the cars wheels squeeling as the driver left the scen of an accident s/he was responsible for. I was also wondering how best to protect my hands once I hit the ground.

The second motor cycle was a Suzuki 250, and was used in Pietermaritzburg for the same reason, to commute, but this time to work at the University of Natal that was not that far away. Here I should add that the second motor cycle in Pietermaritzburg was preceded by a short stint on a second hand road bike.

The short stint was not uneventful. I brought the bike home and immediately thought I would try it out. I start off down our short steep drive in the direction of the closed gate. The rear break cable snapped and I ploughed into the gate. A short while after that Edith, who was working on her MSc in the Zoology Building, phoned me to say I should come over to look at some mouse-like thingy doing something interesting. The bike's derailleur started playing up, and while I was bending over to adjust it, I ploughed into a kerbside tree. After admiring the mouse-like thingy, I returned to my bike where I was accosted by a student who vehemently claimed i had stolen his bike.

Here I should say that all of the above did happen, but now that I have reread it, I can't be sure it happened in the order it has been recorded.

We bought a second car just in time for Cheryl to start borrowing it. Fortunately that did not last too long as Cheryl was awarded a Scholarship to study Civil Engineering and she bought her own car.

Heather then started borrowing the second car and I started to sleep in my office.

Bruce because of his eye-sight problem was never going to be able to drive. When he got on his bike he just kept on going. He cycled around Ireland and Scotland and, also rode from Hilton to Cape Town in order to raise funds for a Bible Fund, and compete in the Cape Town Cycle Tour (The Cape Argus). Bruce was also probably one of the first cyclists in South Africa to cycle on an electric bike, years before they became a popular option, especialy for older cyclists.

After I retired at age 62, I worked for another one and a half years on a part-time basis. Life was easier and given that I had stopped playing Squash, I thought I would try cycling as a form of exercise. Bruce who by then had a Scott Commuter eBike and a Mountain Bike (MTB), was thinking of upgrading his MTB. I took it over and cycling replaced squash. During the next eight years I rode the Shova, Tour Durban, Cape Argus, 94.7, Mangaung (Bloemfontein) Classic, the Port Elisabeth Herald Classic, and the Berg 100.

Given that this was proving to be too much for Edith who had to traipse behind me in the car, she joined me, and since then we have had a wonderful time riding together.

Now for the Nitty Gritties!

Given that they say, "If you rode a bicycle, you are going to fall.", Edith has had her share of falls, and that is all I will say in that regard.

Me? I have had four falls during the modern era.

One I had started to ride reasonable distances on the road, I also ventured off-road, primarily into the plantations that clad the upper reaches of Town Hill in Pietermaritzburg. There I mostly rode on the dirt roads built and occasionally maintained in order to maintain the plantations. I also entered a couple of short (20 km) MTB events. The first was organized by the Scouts in Howick and based at the HIgh School. It also produced my first fall, a backwards flip that resulted from me riding to slowly through a stream bed in order to climb out of the ditch. It was a backward flip and fortunately there were no injuries. I did flatten the banana in the pocket on the back of my cycling shirt.

The second fall was even more ridiculous. Another backwards flip, this while taking off from a Stop on a hill near our home. Again, no injuries. My helmet however did take a good knock, and I have never ever agin thought about whether cyclist should, or should not, be required to wear helmets.

The third fall was due to circumstances and my ignorance. It occured as I cycled down to the Park View complex gate. I had borrowed Bruce's new MTB and was taking it down Town Bush Road in order to try it out. As I headed down the hilll and approached the Comple Gate, I was despeartely using my right hand to locate the gate remote that was in my right shorts pocket. As the gate reared up in front of me I used my left hand to activate the MTB's front break. As I have already mentioned, this was new bike, and it had disk brakes. The MTB stopped dead in its tracks and I went over the handle bar. Luckily the fellow living in Unit 1 was enjoying a Sun Downer with his paramedic son on his porch. My ribs seemd to have taken a knock, but did not seem to have been too badly damaged. My pride was of course severly dented. and my ribs did ache for a couple of weeks. Otherwise I was OK.

The fourth fall occured a week ago. I was riding through the notorious Protea Gardens complex exit gate that is on a dead flat. I was also checking behind me to see whether Edith was going to get through the gate before it had closed, AND attempting to open the entrance gate in order to test whether it would work with the remote I was carrying in my right hand. I tried to slow down a bit, so I applied the front break with my left hand that was still on the handle bar.

As I was going slowly, this basically brought me to a halt. So there I was, perched on top of an Extra Large Scott eBike that has two batteries fitted, and I struggle to get onto the bike rack behind the car. The bike toppled over with me perched on top of it. Like in most falls, the brain is frantically trying to develope a stratergy to minimize damage. My pride tokk a big dent in the face of the other cyclist from the group who we cycle with, and were going to met at the gate. My right elbow was cut and scratched and my heavy bike's cross bar gave my right inner thigh a good clap.

I recovered my dignity and urged them to set off. I would patch myself up, and pursue them as soon as I had done so.

I never did catch them as they changed te route while they were riding.

If you have any comments, corrections, suggestions or plain criticism
I would appreciate it if you would communicate the same to me.