Jane Clarke
Administration Officer
What's your earliest cycling memory?
Middle brother (age 9) riding bike, youngest brother (age 4) wants ride. Middle brother says no, younger brother finds broomstick and hides under house. As middle brother rides by, broomstick is poked into wheel and rider does face plant over handlebars. Screams, tears, vowing revenge, middle brother chases younger brother under our house which is on stumps on the down slope of a small hill. Unable to reach him as he is small enough to cower in far corner, very low to the ground. He stayed there for 4 hours. As children do, I laughed till I fell over.
My first bike was...
A Malvern Star 3 speed girls bike purchased by my parents so I could ride to school in Townsville. In 33 degree heat the nuns insisted we ride in our full school uniform - stockings, gloves, tunics, tie and straw hats - helmets were not yet law. Surprised I didn’t die of heat exhaustion!
What do you do to relax?
I love to read - bicycle touring stories, fiction, non-fiction, autobiographies, etc. and I watch old movies, I’m a sucker for a good sob story. I also play badminton on a social basis and cycling with friends is a big part of my relaxation.
What's most memorable sight you've seen from a bike?
A very hard question! I could say the Champs-Elysees in Paris, the Scottish Highlands and Loch Ness in the UK, the Danube and Rhine Rivers with beautiful scenery, the Loire Valley in France, the Ring of Kerry in Ireland … but, I think it was the day an English friend on a bicycle tour with us became entangled in some road work bunting as he was riding very fast downhill. The bunting was caught across his chest and face and he was dragging some plastic cones along as well. He looked like a wedding car festooned with decorations.
If you could give one piece of advice to a new rider, what would it be?
Cycling is fun and it will open a whole new world of socialising, transportation and travel.
Road bike, mountain bike or tourer?
My bikes: Avanti Sub-Lime (women specific) flat bar road bike, Merida mountain bike, Greenspeed recumbent tricycle (3 wheeler), Optima Lynxx recumbent bike (2 wheeler), Alley Cat Tag-a-long bike (for children). The formula for the number of bikes you can have is: n + 1 where n = the number of bikes you currently own.
What's the best thing about your job?
The people I work with and the people I have contact with. I absolutely love my job, I would do it for nothing but happily I get paid for it. I’ve been with Bicycle Queensland since 2002 and in that time I’ve met an incredible variety of cyclists and non-cyclists. And one of my job perks is I have the chance to test ride the Cycle Queensland route each year - it’s great to get out on the road and “smell the roses” (or the cattle dung!).
If you had the power to change one thing in the world, what would it be?
Perhaps for people to re-assess their priorities and get back to what I think are the basics of a good life - love your family, value your friends, treat everyone as you would like to be treated and don’t let money rule your life. Wealth can’t buy health and happiness (but it can buy a very flash carbon bike!).
