Dr Alexander Bennett

Dr Alexander Bennett, Deputy Chair of the Sunshine Coast Bicycle User Group (and Club member) shares his love of touring and 'safe cycling' advocacy work. 

"The photograph above shows my wife, Lisa, and me at the top of the Col de la Madeleine in the French Alps. It captures quite well what cycling has become for us: a way of travelling, exploring and experiencing places rather than simply covering kilometres.

My relationship with cycling goes back a long way. At 23, I rode around Australia during a difficult period in my life. Together with jumping out of planes, that journey changed my sense of who I was and what I might achieve. It gave me the confidence to pursue a childhood dream of becoming one of those bonzer blokes seen on a primary school newsreel - a flying doctor — something that until then had been beyond me.

That ride became the foundation for a lifetime of cycle touring.

In recent years, Lisa and I have completed more than 20 overseas cycling tours and well over 100,000 kilometres of riding. Much of that has been in Europe and Asia. We now tour in Europe each year, using e-bicycles that we keep near Paris. The electric assistance has not removed the physical challenge; it has simply given us extended range and a different experience. Elsewhere, especially in Asia, we continue to use our Rohloff/Gates equipped expedition bikes.

My professional background also shapes the way I think about cycling safety. I spent my working life as a rural generalist doctor, with much of the latter part of my career in emergency medicine. I have seen first-hand what happens when a motor vehicle travelling at speed collides with a vulnerable person. The physics are unforgiving and the consequences are catastrophic. That experience makes it unacceptable for me that serious injury and death are simply inevitable when using our transport network.

My cycling today is therefore very different from my riding at 23 in one important respect: I no longer ride on Australian roads. I will ride on separated paths, shared paths, quiet local streets and genuinely safe infrastructure, but I do not regard riding in normal Australian traffic as an acceptable risk. That is despite being completely comfortable riding extensively on roads and cycle networks in countries such as France, Italy and Vietnam.

That experience strongly influences what I want SCBUG to achieve. I have no interest in telling people that they simply need to become more confident riders. A transport network should not require courage to use it.

I want children, families, older people, commuters, recreational riders and people who currently would never describe themselves as cyclists to be able to get on a bicycle and go somewhere useful without having to mix with fast-moving traffic. If we create a network that is safe enough for the most vulnerable people to use confidently, we create a better network for everyone.

For me, cycling has always been about much more than the bicycle. From riding around Australia at 23 to crossing the European Alps decades later, it has been about healthy exercise, freedom, independence, travel and discovery. The challenge now is to make that same freedom available close to home — safely."

Dr Alexander Bennett
Deputy Chair
Sunshine Coast Bicycle User Group
https://www.scbug.org/ 
(Join our BUG — It's free!)