My father is a Matai.

This week my son’s class had their bikewise session. It’s a program that most schools do these days - kids learn about road safety by riding bikes around and completing set exercises where they have to put road signs and signals into practice. As my son excitedly recollected his experience my mind turned to my own bike riding experiences. I road my bike a lot on my mission as a young adult in my early 20’s. Especially around the Elizabeth/Paralowie area. Some of my companions couldn’t ride a bike and had to learn on the mission but as far back as I can remember, I always had a bike. And like they say it’s a skill you never forget. Once you can ride a bike you’ll always be able to ride one.   I started with a trike that had a tray so I could take passengers for a ride. I then graduated to a “grown up bike” when I was about 6. I never had training wheels. My parents bought the bike with training wheels but my Dad took them off saying that if I used the training wheels I’d ...