While riding a Melbourne Bike today, I overtook someone! I couldn’t believe it. She looked able bodied enough and her bike seemed to be working.

Three intersections later, though, she overtook me again.

I had a great time on Ride to Work day. It was really easy to get a blue Melbourne bike — in fact, it turned out to be free on Ride to Work day. As I was riding, people along Bourke Street called out to me.

‘Hello cyclist! Do you want free breakfast?’ They pointed to a neat pile of brown paper bags in front of their cafe.

‘Hello! No thank you. I’m going to my company’s free breakfast,’ I said as I slowly wheeled by (it’s uphill coming up to Parliament House).

Free breakfast is one of the rewards of Ride to Work Day.

Now I’ve signed up for a one year subscription. It’s $50 and I get to ride the bikes for free for the first 45 minutes of each trip, which is longer than the standard 30 minutes. I have a blue stick that I put in the bike stand, then I can get whatever bike I want.

I rode to work today. The trickiest bit is Swanston Street. I had thought that Swanston Street would be the easiest — it has lots of cyclists and is closed to private cars during the day. However, this morning I found myself trying to squeeze between a parked truck, a street sweeper and a tram. The other cyclists seemed to be able to do it but I was too scared. Luckily, whenever I feel unsure about something, I can just hop off and wheel my bike on the wide pavements of Melbourne.

Here I am with the official Melbourne bike helmet. There were a whole row of bikes with helments attached so I took one of them.

Preparing to ride to work

As you can see, I don’t need to wear any special riding gear, just my work clothes. My commute takes 15-20 minutes for around three kilometres. I am a very slow cyclist. Every bike overtakes me. But that’s okay. I am obviously a baby bikist, with my clunky public blue bike, upright sitting position and impractical clothing. I don’t feel embarrassed about slowing the cycle lane down.

And look what I spotted! This is the second time that I’ve seen this mysterious yellow bike. I wonder why it’s yellow?

Mystery yellow Melbourne bike

We’ve spent the last six months renovating and moving into our new home in inner Melbourne. I’ve been looking forward to returning to city life and riding a bike to work.

In fact, I’ve been planning to join the Melbourne Bike Share scheme. In London, I looked enviously at the thousands of people riding the Boris bikes. It had just opened up for casual use as I left London for Melbourne so I never got the chance to try it out.

I felt sad that Melbourne bike share has not been as successful so far. Most people think the reason for the low rental rates is because helmets are compulsory. I don’t think this could be the root cause. Most of the London users are regular commuters who can get helmets, rather than casual impulse riders.

More basic reasons are probably how safe our streets feel for cyclists and perhaps the limited coverage of the scheme (mainly Melbourne CBD), which is already well served by trams. Damjan, whose work is slightly outside the very centre of Melbourne, would have to ride my folding bike because there are no blue bike stands near his office.

I hope that the Melbourne bikes will slowly take off. Today I actually saw four Melbourne cycles in my 20 minute morning commute to work. This is a bit of a record for me. Admittedly, two of them were being ridden illegally — one without a helmet, the other on the footpath.

If I had a hand in introducing the bikes to Melbourne, I would have done two extra things to speed up the uptake of the bikes. I would have launched the scheme in late spring or summer — why on earth did they start of in the cold and wet of winter? The UK was a bit smart in introducing their indoor smoking ban in summer to minimise the shock of going outside to smoke.

I would have also given away access or paid lots of people to ride around and generate some interest and buzz. My guess is that if people see other people riding around and if using those bikes seemed normal, then more people would try it out. Instead, it became normal to see full racks of unused bikes, just like it has become normal (common wisdom) that ‘Myki sucks‘ (it’s actually a very useable system, which had well publicised teething problems).

I have registered for Ride to Work day. Next Wednesday I make my first epic 13 minute journey from home to work on a Melbourne bike. I have already scoped out the route. There is only one lane change that I’m worried about but I hope that a mass of cyclists on Wednesday will protect me.

Today, I took my bike out for the first time in two months. Despite the interval, I could still more or less expertly unfold it and launch onto the road.

However, I was terribly wobbly. I almost immediately veered into the queue cars and vans parked along the street. How could my riding have become so rusty in two months?

I hopped off the bike and lifted it to the curb. Ten seconds inspection revealed the problem. The front tyre was flat.

I wheeled my bike to the second-hand bike store where I had bought my lock and lights. A man with a Canadian accent and two centimetres of cigarette butt in his hand helped me attach the bike pump to the wheel nozzle thing.

‘Have you got a puncture?’ he said. ‘It’s really flat.’

‘I haven’t ridden it in a while,’ I said hopefully. I hoped it wasn’t a flat. I don’t know how to fix those yet (Damjan did buy me a book, I’m sure I can look it up).

‘How can you tell?’ I asked. ‘If there’s a puncture, I mean.’ For some reason, I had a mental image of putting the tyre in a bath tub of water. It just flashed into my mind and I didn’t have time to figure out what it meant.

He said, ‘If it’s flat again tomorrow, then you’ve got a puncture.’

I took this to mean that it’d be fine for me to ride today, and so I continued on my planned 20 km ride along Regent’s Canal and Victoria Park.

It was cloudy but dry, a good day for cycling except it became chilly by late afternoon. Also, my helmet was probably on too tight so my head hurt.

The expedition ended two hours later, with front tyre still firm. I felt proud. This was the first independent longish bike ride I’ve done on my new bike.

Tomorrow, I will squeeze the front tyre to see if it’s lost much air. In the mean time, I’ve been pondering the strange mental bath tub image. I now know what it means.

As kids, Jason and I had a number of blow up vinyl toys (didn’t everyone?). For example, we had blow up baseball bats, which we used to swat each other.

Once a few rounds of swatting had occurred, these inflatables would eventually start losing air. I remember dad taking various inflatable toys to the bathroom, putting them in a full bath tub of water, and squeezing them. We then followed the stream of bubbles back to the indistinguishable location of the leak.

The inflatable was then dried and patched with sticky tape. And thus, it lived to fight another day.

When Tube workers went on strike in June, I was completely unaffected. Once again, I rejoiced in my living arrangements, particularly the 20 minute walk between home and work.

There was one aspect of the strike that did cause a twinge of envy. The London Cycling Campaign ran ‘BikeTubes’ over the two strike days. Experienced and novice cyclists joined together to travel en masse along designated routes, thus forming the cycling equivalent of a tube line.

I live too close to work for any of the BikeTube routes to be useful, which is a shame because I really enjoyed the one crowd cycling event I’ve been on.

The BikeTubes were so successful that they are now a permanent fixture on Transport for London‘s calendar. Cycle Fridays allow new cyclists to experiment with riding into work in the safe company of trained marshals from the London Cycling Campaign.

Last Friday as I waited to cross the road to get to work, I saw a BikeTube of people go past me. It looked fun.

Today I joined the 22 mile (35 km) ride around Camden, a large borough of London.

I am the queen! I rule! I went up all the hills, even as people around me were dismounting and wheeling their bikes.

I had so much fun. At 10am, I arrived at Camden town hall, one cyclist amongst 80. There were road bikes, a chopper bike (a pedal-powered low riding Harley-style bike), a Swedish army bike (red and built like a tank), a beautiful Dutch-style Bobbin cycle, two Bromptons, and four other Dahons. Over the course of the ride, I sped up or dropped back to chat with my fellow Dahon owners about the model of their bike, if they liked their wheel size, if they took their bikes on the train, how heavy the bikes were…

A lot of people rode up to admire my bike. ‘Yes, she’s shiny because she’s new,’ I say. ‘She has hub gears and I can change gear without pedalling.’

When you’re in a mass of 80 cyclists, you own the road. We had around ten stewards, fast and nimble cycle instructors in bright yellow who shepherded the group like sheep. They stopped traffic for us. We ran red lights. People on the street cheered. Some got angry. I didn’t care.

‘What are you campaigning for?’ bystanders shouted.

‘Cycling!’ we said. ‘Hooray for bikes!’

The ride took five hours, with one rest at Regent’s Park and another at the the British Museum. We had lunch at Golder’s Hill and ended at Hampstead Town Hall. We went through all my favourite places: Covent Garden, Holborn, Charlotte Street, Hampstead Heath, Kilburn High Street, Camden Town…

I almost gave up at the 20 mile mark. I was thirsty, my rear end was (still is) very sore, and we were coming up to my home. I resisted temptation and pushed through the final steep hill to coast into Hampstead village.

I am the queen, queen of the road! I fear nothing, no red buses, no roundabout can defeat me now!

I thought that maybe I was ready to cycle to work. After all, I had taken my baby steps on the new bike. Then two weeks ago, I had proper test ride in the safe environment of Hampstead Heath. It really was time to take it to the jungle that is London traffic.

Today was the designated day. When I woke up, almost hopefully I ran through every one of my excuses for not riding to work. Wet weather. Not enough morning time to sort things out. Unwieldy bag. Awkward clothing.

Today, though, all those excuses melted away. I was prepped. I psyched myself up. ‘You’re gonna do it, Joan. Today’s the day. The day is today.’

And before I knew it, I found myself on the road curb, bike unfolded, helmet adjusted, trouser leg tucked in with a reflective clip. Then I pushed off and I was back on the road again.

The whole exercise of bringing my bike downstairs, unfolding it, riding slowly (to avoid catching up to buses and having to overtake them) and locking up my bike at work, it all took as long I normally take to walk to work. I’m not saving much (if any) time. But it sure is fun.

Transport for London‘s journey planner has even mapped out a route for me that uses dedicated bike lanes. I took that on the way home this evening, stopping only three times to check my map print out.

Now that I’ve proven that I can cycle to work, I’ll probably go back to walking most days. I’m sure, though, I’ll try the cycle again next week.

I have become a folding bike spotter. I look at all bikes passing me by and this newfound attention has yielded a rich landscape of folding bikes.

Yesterday, I spotted:

• A full sized city bike (26 inch wheels) with a tell-tale knobbly bit in the middle of the frame — it was a folding bike!
• Someone wheeling into the office a completely flat folded bike. I think it was a Wobbegong.
• Two Strida-style cycles with tiny wheels at the bottom vertices of the triangular frame

And, of course, Bromptons everywhere!

Damjan and I took my bike up to Hampstead Heath on the weekend. It was frustrating that the paths mostly had ‘no bicycles’ emblazoned on them. Then we found one bike path and that led to another. I was so happy to be zooming around. Hooray for bikes!

I have been dreaming about riding a bike. In my dreams, I can feel my legs working at the peddles and my hair flying back as I tear through Regent’s Park.

I blame the dreams on the warm weather. And even though I know this springtime sunshine won’t last, I can’t get the cycling dreams out of my head.

Well, then. Maybe it’s time to buy a bike.

Because I live in a flat with no garden or storage space, this bike would need to be a folding bike.

The premier folding bike is the Brompton. Ah, the Brompton — so cute yet elegant! So compact yet functional! So desirable… yet expensive. A new Brompton would set me back at least £570.

(I also discovered that there is a good chance that a second-hand Brompton bought via Gumtree would be stolen goods. I can’t bear the idea of profiting from the heartbreak of a former Brompton owner out there.)

‘Damjan,’ I said. ‘I think I want to buy a Brompton.’

‘Great idea!’ Damjan said supportively. ‘You’ve been thinking about it for ages.’

I was taken aback. ‘No, I haven’t! I just thought of it yesterday!’

Damjan hmphed knowingly. ‘I’ve seen you perving at them. Every time one goes past, you stare.’

I conceded that, yes, I do indeed perve at Bromptons.

After days of obsessing over folding bikes, I eventually convinced myself that I didn’t need one. I walk to work. I’m away most weekends. When would I have time to ride a £600 bike?

Just as I had made my decision, I spotted this online: the Dahon Mu XL Sport. I had read about this bike and I couldn’t believe my eyes. Normally £800+, a sports shop in Devon was selling the 2008 model for £450.

Dahon folding bikes aren’t as elegant as Bromptons but they have other advantages. This bike has 20 inch wheels, bigger than the 16 inch Brompton wheels. The parts are standard components compared to Brompton’s specialised ones. This means that when I take the Dahon to Australia, I can repair and replace parts easily. The Mu XL is around a kilogram heavier than the standard Brompton but for the extra weight I get not only bigger wheels, but also eight gears instead of three.

I agonised for all of twenty minutes.

Then I clicked ‘Buy it now’.

Dahon Mu XL Sport

Isn’t it beautiful? It arrived within two days. All I had to do was take it out of the box, unfold it and pump up the tyres.

I rode it for the first time today and I felt giddy. I was so excited I could feel my heart pounding. Riding this bike today felt exactly how it was like when I was riding my dreams.

(I have already bought a ‘f*** off, thieves’ lock. Everyone I know has had a bike stolen and there’s no way any Gumtree or Brick Lane merchant is going to get their hands on this one!)