Confessed Anti-Cyclist Starts Loving the Bike
There was an interesting story in The Standard online newspaper last week. I didn’t find it myself, but my friend Victor from Bicycle Lab pointed it out to me saying it would make a great post for my site.
David “Fred” Serra, a former footballer from Australia, never would have imagined wearing lycra….but his neighbor, Danny Burke, had other plans. Danny had been after David to try out cycling for over a year, but as a self proclaimed “anti-cyclist”, David had absolutely no interest in giving it a shot. But one day the persistence paid off and once David cranked the pedals, he was hooked.
“I played footy for a long time and when you retire you don’t have anything to fill that competitive void. But cycling is a funny sport and there’s an awful lot to learn.” – David Serra
Not only is David now Loving the Bike, he’s become a competitive cyclist as well and just took part in a 70km race from Camperdown to Warrnambool last week. He’s already taken part in a few races, but this one was his longest yet.
“The way I like to race is to go out really hard and try to catch the bunch in front.” – David Serra
And what about having to wear those lycra cycling outfits? David says, “It’s like footy; you wear footy boots because it helps you play. You have to wear the right uniform in cycling.”
I’m sure there are many more cycling “conversion” stories closer to home, but it’s very cool to hear about this one from the land down under. If you know of an anti-cyclist who’s been converted, we’d love to hear about. Please leave a comment and share with us.
Thanks to The Standard for supplying the information for this post.
You’re a lucky man to have cycled in so many places. Yes, I would love to cycle Australia one day….so many great places to check out.
Darryl
My wife and I toured 12,000 miles around and through the middle of Oz in 2000. We found, to our great surprise, a velodrome in Alice Springs. We of course were taken in fed, and went to watch the races. Alice Springs is just a few thousand people, and they have a velodrome! Why doesn’t every American city! Just sayin…
Drivers were very respectful of cyclists there, even if there must have been a few anti-cyclists!
Cycle Australia! Fantastic.