Taking off

Growing up, my brother and I both had BMX Raleigh Burners. They came out in the early Eighties and were bright and tough – they may be old school now but they were the latest and so popular back then!

We didn’t race or know any tricks but my brother had a go and set up a few stunts in our back garden. My favourite was a ramp at the side of our Portapool. We didn’t have a big garden but would pedal as fast as we could from the front garden to the pool at the back – up and fly off the top of the ramp – and, for just a moment, seem to hang in the air, before dropping and hitting the water, and slowly, slowly – so we pedalled all the more furiously, pushing against the weight of the water – sinking to the bottom. Then we’d pull our bikes out and race back to the far side of the garden to do it all over again...

And it was all the more fun because it was summer so we’d get back from after-school sport and take off still in our P.T. shorts and t-shirts, laughing all the way back in our clingy clothes.

Here’s a photo of my cousin Roz, and my brother Rich and I on our BMXs. We were visiting my cousins on holiday.

This year my brother has been hard at work building a house for his family. And this week my cousin and her three year old daughter are flying out to Malaysia to set up home with her husband there. She’s lived in the UK for – what? fifteen years now? – so this move is very exciting and, I think, a little scary.

But, I also think, so many of the best and most fun adventurers simply start out with a bike...

Give a girl a bicycle and she can go anywhere. Or believe she can – and that’s a start and what counts.