A new beginning

So this is my blog. What's it all about you may (or may not) ask?

I began this blog as a way to document my life, experiences and happenings involving cycling. To document my (hopefully) improved fitness and weight loss, the good and the bad, the highs and the lows.

Why cycling you ask? Well, I used to ride my bike (BMX) as a kid after school and on the weekends, each and every day. I was a budding motocrosser and seeing as I couldn't ride my motocross bike on the streets- BMX would have to do.

Several years later and with the arrival of my baby sister Sara, my family moved to a larger house in Ringwood (an outer eastern suburb of Melbourne). I was used to living in the inner city (Richmond) and somehow, riding around the dead suburban streets of Ringwood just didn't cut it and I soon lost interest. Richmond had industrial obstacle to jump off, leap over and bounce off. Ringwood had... umm... empty streets and I knew no one. Sure, I got older and tried a bit of mountain biking but it never really seemed the same and my time on a bicycle became nothing more than a memory.

Cut forward to 2007 and my wife and I are watching Le Tour de France on SBS TV late one night (we had become fans of the race and watched it every night) and it was great. I loved watching the drama of the race, the crazy crowds on the side of the roads (especially the mountain stages), and the beautiful French country side. I had always dreamed of cycling from village to village, stopping to buy fresh bread and cheeses for a picnic lunch but of course I have never been able to travel to France and I can't see being able to do so in the near future.

So anyway, I'm watching the TdF pass me by on the TV when it hit me like a bolt out of the blue- "Why can't Lisa and I buy road bikes and take a touring holiday around the Barossa Valley?" I pose the question to Lisa and she jumps at the idea and we are off! We start looking at bikes online, visiting bike shops and getting into it all. Lisa buys some cycling magazines and suddenly- its all we can both think about. I'm more excited about the idea of Lisa and me going cycling than I have been about anything else for a long, long time.

I'm not only excited about the idea of going for a holiday around the Barrosa, I'm also excited about the idea of loosing weight, gaining fitness and most importantly- sharing the experiences with Lisa.

So we settle on Kona flat bar road bikes each (me- Dr Dew and Lisa- Dew Deluxe) and we find Matt at Brunswick Street Cycles great to deal with. And so- with great excitement we buy our bikes, some cycling clothing (who would have thought we would be wearing lycra!) and we are off on the start of our new life.

We have been on two rides so far (weather has conspired against us so far) and I will talk about those rides and other cycling related experiences we have encountered in later posts. Also coming will be a log of our rides once I get around to setting up a spreadsheet and linking to it.

Ok, thats enough rambling from me for now.

A new beginning