Where it started. Where it's been. And where's it going?

Being out on the bike has always been where I have always been able to find some inner peace. A place to switch off from the day to day and focus on the now. I played a lot of team sports growing up, from softball and baseball, rugby league and rugby union, cricket the list goes on. I was always an active kid. I was also heavily involved in pistol and rifle shooting (in a way, still am but now its part of my chosen career path). But being on a bike, no matter what form, be it BMX, Dirt Jumpers, Trail/Enduro, Downhill or as I have recently discovered, Road, that has always had me drawn in to it and allow me to just "switch off without switching off".

I have been on and off bikes for as long as I can remember, always out in the street making some very shady jumps, jumping driveways, kids, garbage bins. It wasn't until I was around 16, a little bit over some of the team sports I had been playing that I decided to get another BMX bike and just start having fun again. I was over the grind of training 4 days per week, then playing on the weekend. I was over the monotonous travel all over the place to spend 70 minutes on the rugby field only to have the coach lose the plot because we managed to get trumped by the better team. Our coach had a distorted perception of what he liked to label us as "his core 6". We were all representative players, making district and regional teams (2 of us were even state reps) but when there are 16 other players on the team, not everything should come down to us. A loss for the team in his eyes, was a direct failure of "the core 6". I walked away at the end of that season, vowing it would take a very special coach or club to get me to lace my boots back up. 

I started hanging out at the local skate parks, learning the basic tricks. No footers, no handers, x-ups. Stuff that was easy(ish) to learn. I fell in with a small group of riders, and from there, we would ride together daily. Even when I started working full time, I had the luxury of having the local park less than 500m from where I worked, so after work we would ride until we couldnt see anything at all. Days off and weekends would have us riding all day and into the night, sometimes breaking away from our local park to ride some street, head out to the local BMX track, other local skate parks, dirt jumps. I even bought a second bike so I could start racing. No matter where the 3 racers in the group would be racing, everyone would be there and just being support but also acting like reprobates at the races. If there was mischief to be had, we would have it! We were just happy to get out and ride out bikes and have fun. As time went on, I was loving being out on the bike and hanging with this group, but I would occasionally borrow another mates DH bike and head off and ride some of the local DH trails with another group of guys I met through my visits to the local bike shop. The purchase of a Schwinn Straight 8 soon followed and I had another group of mates to ride bikes with and not solely ride BMX. This didnt last long as I replaced the Schwinn with an Avanti D8 that someone decided they like more than me and "liberated" it from my parents garage one night.

Being back to just a BMX bike, I decided to just have fun with a bunch of mates on bikes. It was around this time one of the guys I rode with introduced me to his girlfriends sister. We hit it off and she started hanging with the whole group. A week after we became "official", I had first major injury from biking. Sure, there has been cuts and niggles, but this one owned me. I got off balance on a jump and stuck my leg out to counter balance. When I landed, my foot caught an exposed rock and basically the rock tried to removed my foot from my leg. Tore all the ligaments in my ankle, broke 3 bones and now, 26 years later, I have a permanent reminder as my foot has pointed out to the left since then! My now wife was right there beside me through that recovery period and 26 years, 3 kids and now a grandchild later, she is still beside me and has been through other struggles and injuries.

It was around 2003, I was still riding, we already had one child but I wasn't enjoying my riding. The constant that was the group of guys I rode with had all drifted. Some moving away, others quitting riding all together. A mate had just started playing rugby again and knowing my background, asked me to have a sit down with his coaches. Remember when I said it would take a special coach or club to get me to lace up the boots? Well, Jerry, Donnie and Les were those coaches and the Wollongong-Weerona Wombats was that team. I am a product of a rival clubs junior system, but the Wombats were one of the oldest clubs with the proudest history. One of their more senior players was my mentor in my junior rep days. They would assign a player from the first 15 and have them mentor a player from the U/17s. The Wombats didn't have a junior system, which really hurt the club and led to them folding around 1999. In 2003, the club got a revival, relocating the club to Dapto, a rugby league stronghold, and after meeting with the 3 coaches, I agreed to lace up the boots, but also told them I have zero desire to play first grade,  and would only play 3rds or if the bid for a 2nd grade spot by the club was successful, 2nd grade. I still rode BMX, but only in the off season. That first season the club fielded two 3rd grade teams. The "blue" team was filled with pure talent. Ex professional league players that had been "coaxed" to the club by the clubs financial backer. I wasn't on a paid contract but was more than happy to play in the 2nd team, the "gold" team. I would still play off the bench for the blues most weekends, sometimes starting for them, sometimes starting for both teams (man I wish I was still that fit!). Both teams made the semi finals, and if th3 golds didn't get beaten, it would have been the blues vs gold in the grand final that first year the club was re-included, something that still, 20 years later, still annoys people.

I had committed to the club on a verbal agreement for 3 seasons, but before my third season, I felt a different life calling. I had been discussing with my wife about joining the Army, something she supported as it would give us and our now 2 children more stability. I informed the whole club after our first comp game that I would not be playing the full season. The players I was close to all supported me and still do to this day.

Fast forward to 2010. I was still playing rugby for my Army unit. My wife and I had another child. But I was getting the itch again to get back on a bike properly. I still had bikes, I got back into them whilst deployed to Iraq. I was riding for fun when I could, but wanted more. I wanted to start racing again. I signed on and did a couple of 4X races locally. But what I really wanted was to get back onto a DH bike. It took me 2 years, not only because I had transferred jobs within the Army and moved locations, but I was also deployed again. So in 2012, I decided to "spoil" myself and buy 3 new bikes. 

These 3 kept me occupied. Entering races where I could despite a heavy workload and juggling family also. The enduro was cracked when I got it, was annoyed with that considering the seller didn't disclose that it was cracked, but it did the job. As per usual with bikes, the bumps, scrapes and crashes happened, but my wife and kids knew, it was my escape. I replaced the Specialized with a Cannondale Rush, but kept the Morewood and Jackal for a few more years until I swapped the Jackal for a Dartmoor 26Player.

I had a few health issues in early 2017, so this led to a small period off the bike but I was back on the bikes by September that year but in October, it all came undone!

I was racing the BMX event at the Defence Cycling Carnival. Was pulling gates great. I was hauling all morning. I was jumping the pro section of the track which, being one of only 2 doing so, promptly saw it closed for "safety concerns".  It was honestly the most comfortable and confident I had felt in a race situation ever. But, drawing gate 1, with a soft spot on the start the transition for the first jump, it sucked up my speed and I nose cased the landing, sending me over the bars, breaking my radius at both the wrist and elbow. I was hurting. I was annoyed. I almost wanted to give it all away. This was the forst official event of the week and I was out in the first race! But this is what I love about cycling. People I had just met the day before had rallied to help me out. Most of these people I am still in regular contact with. 

Now we had to start again. This kicked off a series of surgeries and set backs, but all that my wife and I took in our stride. The surgeries didn't happen straight away though. They deemed the fractures "stable" when they first happened, so I fought on and just got back to being healthy again. Then in 2019, I somehow managed to refracture my wrist doing push ups during morning PT. This kicked off the surgical route. After having some scans, the surgeon identified that my wrist hadn't healed straight causing instability and arthiritic tissue to grow and as a result, my ulna would need to be shortened 3mm to stabilise th joint and an arthroscope would be done on my wrist to clear the arthritic tissue. During my rehab, the physio said my right shoulder didn't look right and asked if I have had any issues with it. I have had shoulder issues for years, but just put it down to all my years playing rugby which had created the soreness. He sent me for scans and as it turns out, an injury occurred through work where my shoulder was dislocated had torn my labrum and partially torn multiple ligaments in my shoulder. Cue another operation, another bout of being on medications for mental issues due to the way my work place at the time treated me whilst I was recovering and it was all fun and games. And then the global pandemic that was covid kicked off.

Right before the whole world basically shut down, I had managed to convince my wife to let me buy 3 new bikes as this was going to be my way back to getting fit, getting back to racing and minus my DJ, all my bikes were now almost a decade old. So dropped an order with Canyon for the Sender and a Spectral. Would have been a Stitched 720 also, but they had none in stock so it was the next best thing, a Polygon Trid ZZ. 

As covid started to not become a thing and everything started to open back up, I started to do some more races but also meeting people and just hitting up bike parks and riding areas. I am still going riding, having fun on the same 3 bikes from 2020, although none are full "stock" these days having received upgrades. I won't race much anymore though, more just having fun on bikes, my race fitness is not there these days. I may get behind the start post for select races, but will continue to be apart of the Defence carnival every year. 2023 was my first carnival back after the 2017 debacle and despite a huge crash in Enduro, managed 2nd in age class in DH the next day.

Getting out on the bike has been a godsend both mentally and physically. Bikes have bought me out of some dark places (haven't written much about that here) and whilst they have given me some injuries I wish I didn't have, they have given me many things that I hold close to my heart. First, if it wasn't for bikes, I wouldn't have met the love of my life. A woman who has walked beside me the whole way on this adventure through life. Second is the friendships I have made through cycling. Some would say that the club I am a part of has people who are more tied to each other because of our jobs, all serving our country but if you ask any of us, we are also tied together because of another love we all have, BIKES! Some people ask me "when will you grow up and stop riding bikes?" My response to those people is pretty much uniform every time "I have a spare bike, come for a ride sometime and you will see that I am already grown and that I still ride bikes because they are FUN!" I will continue to ride bikes until I can no longer pedal. That could be in 5 years, that could be in 25 years. Who knows. 2023 was personally a very difficult year for me, having lost my first mentor in my father in July. But he always supported us in what we did, and some advice he gave me many years ago was not to give up what you love doing to appease those that don't value your happiness. That's why I still ride, that's why I continue to have fun on 2 wheels. The people I have met though cycling, the club I am involved with all make it so much better. One person made comment at last years carnival that my absence from previous carnivals had been noticed as minimal shenanigans would occur, but they all knew my return had come with some of the shenanigans that took place during that weekin October last year! From the "I know you're not sick, just get better" cards that would find their way into people's cars/helmets/bikes etc to the usual "parc ferme sabotage" where a grip might be loosed, a pedal or front wheel removed and placed next to the bike. All was in good fun, zero malice just a good old practical joke (yes, and I also had a couple played on me in return haha). 

So, that's pretty much it in a rather broad nutshell. 40+ years on and off being a menace on 2 wheels, raising kids, watching a grandchild grow up, annoying friends and family with practical jokes and all simply because mt parents thought it would be an awesome idea to buy me a 16" BMX bike when I was 4!