http://escape.news.com.au/story/0,9142,18910060-5002900,00.html
Doing the city cycle
By Martin Buzacott
April 22, 2006
HANDING over $36 for the short trip by taxi from suburban Balmoral to Brisbane Airport, I realised something had to be done.
Ahead of me lay two months of constant travel to all of Australia's state capitals, interviewing veterans of the ABC for a book that I'm writing on the national broadcaster.
With moths flying out of my wallet before even leaving Brisbane, I reviewed my first day's schedule of meetings, which consisted of six appointments in five different Melbourne suburbs, some 15km apart.
By my frantic mental arithmetic, that amounted to an additional $150 in cab fares that day alone, and it wasn't much less if I hired a car and paid for petrol and parking.
Within the day's tight time-frame, buses, trains and trams weren't an option, either.
At home in Brisbane I regularly cycle for fitness and pleasure, so doing business by bike made sense both financially and in terms of lifestyle.
By hiring hybrids (a cross between mountain and road bikes) I could go just about anywhere on the bikeways that Australia's local authorities have been building in recent years.
In the end I cycled more than 1500km through all five of Australia's interstate capitals.
...
[follow link for rest of article]
http://escape.news.com.au/story/0,9142,18910060-5002900,00.html
Doing the city cycle
By Martin Buzacott
April 22, 2006
HANDING over $36 for the short trip by taxi from suburban Balmoral to Brisbane Airport, I realised something had to be done.
Ahead of me lay two months of constant travel to all of Australia's state capitals, interviewing veterans of the ABC for a book that I'm writing on the national broadcaster.
With moths flying out of my wallet before even leaving Brisbane, I reviewed my first day's schedule of meetings, which consisted of six appointments in five different Melbourne suburbs, some 15km apart.
By my frantic mental arithmetic, that amounted to an additional $150 in cab fares that day alone, and it wasn't much less if I hired a car and paid for petrol and parking.
Within the day's tight time-frame, buses, trains and trams weren't an option, either.
At home in Brisbane I regularly cycle for fitness and pleasure, so doing business by bike made sense both financially and in terms of lifestyle.
By hiring hybrids (a cross between mountain and road bikes) I could go just about anywhere on the bikeways that Australia's local authorities have been building in recent years.
In the end I cycled more than 1500km through all five of Australia's interstate capitals.
...
[follow link for rest of article]
http://escape.news.com.au/story/0,9142,18910060-5002900,00.html
