Quotes

A good cyclist does not need a road.

Bloody hard!

Get a bike. You will not regret it, if you live.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Tank heaven the ground broke me fall!

Never trust those Aussies.

My motto has always been, if there's a job to be done just get stuck in and do it.

I landed some 10 yards away on the broad of my back, and although there were very few abrasions from this sudden stoppage, I had the frightful feeling for a few seconds that my spine had been broken. From then on I was no longer a racing cyclist.

The race on Sunday was 230 miles [370 kilometres], a nice little try-out, but nothing to what the Pyrenees will be.

Keep down the quantity of your luggage. Take only what is absolutely necessary. A change of stockings, a couple of extra singlets and tennis shirts, a few handkerchiefs, and a rain cape is all that is required.

Never travel without a good supply of money. The power of gold is considerable when you happen to get stranded.

Don't drink beer; its effect is very deadening to the muscles. Whiskey and milk is a good reviver, but even then the whiskey is only a whip to the tired horse.

Carry a small pebble in the mouth. This keeps the salivary glands busy, the throat moist, and the thirst quenched.

At one stage of the [penny farthing] race we passed an old man in a country cart driving a grey horse. Up reared the horse, alarmed at the unusual sight, and then collapsed dead on the road.

Our first impression of the pneumatic-tyre bicycle was at an afternoon meeting where the Pioneer Club put on six of the events. Tom Clarkson had entered for all the events with what looked to us like a toy bicycle. Compared with our high ordinary machines it looked so insignificant, and a general laugh went round from all of us when he was ready to start. However, he won not only one race, but five, and of course, had the laugh over us. That was the end of the high bicycle.

When Bill Pratney was taken to hospital - one of the last to go because of his hopeless condition - the surgeons gave him little chance. They stopped the flow of blood, but decided there was no point in setting his broken jaw.

The cycle carries the scholar to school; the workman to his daily toil; the clerk to his counting-house; and the merchant and professional man to their places of business. The doctor visits his patients and the minister his flock by the same ready means of locomotion ... A generation of horses has arisen whose attitude towards the modern "safety" is suggestive of the familiarity that breeds contempt. The very dogs have recognised the futility of running after and barking at a couple of swiftly-revolving wheels that soon leave them panting in the rear.

...the bicycle is no longer a new toy that everyone is anxious to possess and play with. With most of us, cycling has come to be part of our daily life. We ride down to the office as naturally as we walk downstairs to breakfast.

There is an exhilaration in gliding swiftly through the clear, fresh air, coasting down long hills, gliding along valleys, and occasionally gaining an impetus which carries the fleeting vision nearly to the top of the next hill, from which, without doubt, a fine view is to be had.

If racing cyclists are mad, and there is ample evidence to suggest that if not mad then at least they're all masochists, mountain bikers come into a particular category of their own.

Bicycling is immoral in its tendencies and has caused the ruin of thousands of young girls.

The future of Christchurch is so obviously approaching on wheels that there can be no conceivable reason the bicycle rampant should not take the place of the Ram, the Bull, the Tunnel, or the Plough on the city crest.

Cycling was dying. Then mountain biking came along and dragged it kicking and screaming into the 21st century."

Oli Brooke-White, North and South, December 2007.

What then is the future of cycling? If its growth has not been as great as it would have been if no mechanical traffic had invaded the highways, it has yet in it an immortal spark that cannot be extinguished. It has the personal appeal of an easily achieved pleasure that never palls.

The real truth is, that when the motor comes into universal use life will not be worth living. A horse does not like to run a man down if he can help it, but a machine of steel and brass will delight in killing people.

Now that ladies have taken so largely to the bicycle, the etiquette of the wheel is a matter which must be taken seriously in hand. No matter how insignificant a woman may be, nor how inconspicuous her garb... she is bound to attract attention upon the bicycle. The entire army of pedestrians, cabmen and small boys feel privileged to stare at her and pass remarks. Non-cycling women regard here with mingled amazement and amusement. She is public property, open to all kinds of comment and criticism.

The chief duty of a cycliste is to be graceful -- to ride without effort... once mounted on her wheel, she has put herself in a conspicuous place, and must be prepared to run the gauntlet of criticism.

Don't trim any part of your visible wheeling costume with lace or frills of any kind. Remember that the best-dressed wheelwoman is she who is most severely plain in every detail.

Don't borrow the pump of a man you do not know and forget to return it.

Competitors shall ride to win.

Time trialling in cycling demands only a few of the characteristics normally associated with competitive sports. The real adversary is not a fallible mortal, but that inexorable old man with scythe and hour glass -- Time. Against him, 'luck', wits and sportsmanship, so important in other sports, are useless. The only weapons possessed by the time trialist are pure physical ability, and moral courage.

Tired, wet and hungry, we were overtaken by darkness on the top of the Hundalee saddle, the first night out from home! What misguided sense of adventure had tempted us to leave our cozy firesides?

Why hurry? With a bicycle you have no need for a timetable.

BMX boomed because it organised into a sport what kids had been doing for years -- fooling around on bikes.

Something ought to be done about the image BMX has developed as a "little kids' pastime". I'm 18 and am sick of tired of the flak received for being involved in a so-called "kids sport".

Has anyone else noticed how serious everyone is getting about riding these days? Like training programmes, Nationals schedules, sponsorship deals, heart rate monitors, and race to kill attitudes...

It's an incredible feeling, when you ride one of these machines that was built over a century ago. It's like going back in time...

For God's sake, make sure you're having fun!

He does his job 100 per cent. He is one of the tough boys, always up there when it counts, one of the real hard men.

Stuart O'Grady on Julian Dean. The Dominion Post, July 27, 2007.

I loved the thrill of [downhill] but I think enjoyed more the pleasure you get from pushing your body to the limit in cross-country. It's a drug and I think I got a bit addicted.

Kashi Leuchs. The Dominion Post, 2006.

I just thought 'bugger it, I'm going to ride my bike down the hill, have fun and I don't care what happens, I'll just do my best.'

Vanessa Quin reveals her world champion strategy, 2004.

Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer despair for the future of the human race.

H. G. Wells, 1904