HOW I STARTED

NAME: Billy Parker AGE: 60 BIRTHPLACE: Cork Solicitor

GROWING up in the ’60s in a country town, a Raleigh threespeed — with lights powered by a dynamo that pressed against the front wheel — was my best friend as it transported me to school and sport and adventures at the weekend. I cycled not for leisure or fitness but just to get around.

We parted company when I finished secondary school and headed to university in Dublin. It would be another 30 years before I would acquire a bike, apart from those purchased for my children.

My reintroduction to cycling was a charity cycle to Wexford in 2003 for the Father Peter McVerry Trust.

I was encouraged to sign-up by a good friend and began encouraging my work colleagues to join me each year. I would train on my own for a few months, ride the event, and put the bike away until the following year.

In 2010, one of my work colleagues suggested that we should keep it going and join Orwell Wheelers. I was unconvinced but decided to join her the following week in my squash shorts, football socks and runners. We went to Greystones

— a normal Sunday spin for the group — had coffee and returned. And that was the start of it. I was hooked.

I began browsing through bike stores I didn’t know existed, changed my bike, my squash shorts and ventured deeper into the countryside and the fabulous Wicklow hills. I rode my first sportive, went to the Alps with some friends and completed multi-day charity events in France, Spain, Italy and Portugal.

I write this having just completed a three-day charity cycle along the Great Ocean Road in Melbourne. The people I have met and the places I have seen could only happen through biking. And the coolest thing is that there is no real technical challenge. It’s a simple formula the more you cycle, the fitter and faster you get, and the further you can go.