Humor:

Where's there's a wheel, there's a waaaaaaaaaay

I learnt to ride a bicycle when I was six. No, perhaps I was seven.

Apparently you never forget how to ride a bike, but recalling the exact date you learnt to ride it in the first place is entirely another matter.

Suffice to say it was circa 1965 on a straight dirt road in the growing Launceston sub-division of Newnham.

I ought to have carved the date into the base of a pine tree near to where my historic first ride came to an end. Something along the lines of "John Martin learnt to ride a bike on this date. Unfortunately, he did not know yet how to put on the brakes and landed in the blackberry bushes to the right."

But I did not think of it at the time. Guess I hurt too much.

It is different when we are younger.

My parents dutifully filled in a baby book until I was five, recalling things I have really never wanted to tell people like the date of my first bowel movement.

But nobody recorded the date of my first solo ride, momentous day that it was.

Newnham circa 1965 was full of young families, and you could not be part of the neighourhood little boys' gang unless you could ride a bike.
My parents bought me one - a small Malvern Star - but I could not manage riding it for ages. I used to simply wheel my little two-wheeler around the neighbourhood to be part of the group.

We used to get up to things that make me cringe now as a parent.
One of our favourite pastimes was exploring the interiors of unlocked, nearly-finished houses - without a thought that something or someone nasty might have been inside.

My father and older sisters spent lots of time trying to teach me how to ride, but all in vain.

It finally happened when I was with a friend practising on the straight dirt road between our house and our nearest corner shop, Mrs Pitt's. In all likelihood I was supposed to be running an errand to Mrs Pitts' but became sidetracked.
To a six or seven year old, I guess the road was about 100 yards long. It has probably grown shorter over time. I remember gritting my teeth and just riding in a straight line, exhilarated, until, um, I prefer not to think about not knowing how to apply the brakes. It upsets me.

I do not recall the name of the road.

I expect it looks a lot different now. A sealed cul-de-sac perhaps with lots of houses. Or maybe it now actually goes somewhere.

Back then it was surrounded on both sides by empty paddock and pulled up dead at a stand of pine trees.

I knew those pine trees well.

All us neighbourhood kids did.

When we were not exploring unoccupied new houses, we climbed the pine trees, hid in them, even built treehouses in them. I remember my father having to coax me down from a treehouse once when I discovered I was afraid of heights. I am sure he would have come up and got me if he had not been afraid of heights too.

I should have known about my vertigo.

I recall sitting high on my dad's shoulders above the crowd at the old York Park bike track, watching the likes of the great Sid Paterson in the Launceston six-day cycling race.

I was four. No, maybe I was five.

All I remember is that I did not like it much up there.

And I should have twigged then I would be no good at riding bikes either.

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it