In the midst of COVID lockdown, I learnt a new skill. That sounds like nothing special; everywhere you turned during lockdown, people were posting about their culinary exploits, learning a new language, or, let’s face it, eating and drinking more and watching TV.

But my COVID trick was learning to ride a bike at the age of 46. And it changed my life. I was born 12 weeks early with mild cerebral palsy. Growing up, I always thought bike riding just wasn’t an option for me. My CP diagnosis is spastic diplegia, which means it mainly affects one half of my body — in my case, my lower limbs and the way I walk.

My left leg has more spasticity than my right. As a young child, I couldn’t walk more than two steps without a fall. But after a lot of physio and many operations, including two heel cord lengthening surgeries and hip rotations, aside from the odd fall, I walk pretty well, with that classic CP gait – or ‘wobble’, as some of my CPSN Tribe buddies call it! (Side note: I love it when I see other people out and about with the same lopsided gait as me, but I am generally too shy to intrude on their day. So, if you have CP and see me out in the street, say hi!)

Getting on two wheels has always been a short-lived proposition. My experience as a child quickly revealed I could never stay upright for long. Doing work with an exercise physiologist in recent years is helping me achieve great things. The longest I have been able to balance on my left leg (the tighter side) is 14 seconds. After two years’ practice, that’s a big achievement because I started at less than 2!

I have a number of close friends who are really into cycling. One friend in particular has always insisted there *must* be a way to get me riding. The closest we came was him ‘dinking’ me (picture me perched precariously on his front handlebars while we lurched down a back street one New Year’s Eve).

As a child, I was raised not to see myself as different. But as a result I didn’t talk too much about my CP. It was seldom discussed outside of clinical settings and there were certainly no alternatives offered to me as an aspiring rider with balance issues in hospital or school settings. This is something that appears to have changed with the advent of research such as the University of Melbourne Cyclink project, which I am involved in as an associate investigator.

When I met the researchers for the first time at a CP Achieve conference they were surprised I had not tried modified bikes as a child. But I think inclusion has come a long way and adaptive cycling was just not a thing that people spoke to me about as a kid in the 80s.

Having said that, please don’t think I went entirely without! I have always loved finding ways to go fast.

When I was very young, I rode a wooden go-cart lovingly handcrafted by my grandfather; my first trip to the snow included me tobogganing headlong into a tree. Another favourite pastime was careening down the grass hill in the vacant lot behind my house on flattened cardboard. So, it’s safe to say I have always been somewhat of a speed junkie.

But, as an adult I always dismissed my friend’s steadfast insistence that cycling could be achievable. That all changed with the advent of e-bikes, a lot of trial and error, and the help of some key people. This included support and encouragement from an amazing Sydney cycling advocate and two of the best bike shops in Sydney: the wonderful and kind folk at Glow Worm Electric Bikes in Marrickville and Omafiets in Alexandria.

In addition, I received road safety training from BikeWise (offered free during COVID thanks to City of Sydney), some important safety mods from Freedom Wheels, and funding from NDIS, after quite a bit of perseverance and report writing from Cerebral Palsy Alliance.

I want to document my experience not because it makes great inspiration porn — which I think it probably does. Posting my cycling exploits on socials during COVID was a happy lockdown distraction that I was – and am – proud to share. I want to record how riding makes me feel. The ability to condense time and space, fit a whole lot more into my day, and see my city in an entirely new way is profound. That feeling of exhilaration has never gone away.

I also want to share what I learnt as a way to encourage others who may not have tried cycling to give it a go. Because it is bloody great! Modified bikes are another alternative to mobility scooters. For me, the option seemed a lot more fun.

There is interesting research from the UK describing how bikes can function like ‘rolling walking sticks’. Although disabled bike riders are perhaps a hidden minority, I am certainly not the only bike rider with a disability I see at my gym.

It is no exaggeration to say that when I am out and about on my trike, I get stopped in the street at least once a week by interested people wanting to know what I am riding, where I obtained it, what modifications I made, and whether it was funded through the NDIS. These enquiries are typically from people my age and older, both with and without disability.

I would dearly love to see more awareness and research into cycling as an option for adults with disability, particularly as we age, and specifically more adults with CP.

I want to share my story so that more people like me might consider exploring all the fun, freedom and empowerment that cycling can bring.