Thit Tieu grew up on the outskirts of Yangon in Myanmar. This is Thit’s cycling story.

It was on my 5^th birthday when my parents gave me the biggest surprise – a tricycle! Boy, how I loved that trike. I loved riding it around the compound. At the time we lived in Myanmar on the outskirts of the capital city Yangon and we had ample space to ride the trike around. My big brother had a bicycle and my younger sisters and I shared the tricycle.

However, when I was around eight or nine, I really wanted to ride a bicycle like my big brother. He was using a man’s bike and I was determined to learn how to ride it even though it was far too large for me. The only way I could reach the pedals was to slide my leg through the bike frame and try to balance. I had many falls and crashes and suffered many cuts and bruises on my legs, but I was eventually successful. That’s how I graduated and taught myself to ride a grown-up bike.

Bike riding was such a fun activity for us kids but we were never allowed to ride on the road. When I was about 15, Dad finally got me a bike of my own. By that time we had moved in to the University campus and I would ride around the Yangon Arts and Science University campus with my friend Agnes everyday after school. If anything was wrong with the bike, we just took it to the local bike repair place. There were many little shops like that around our area. 

Although cycling was one of the primary means of transport for many people in my home town, we were never allowed to ride on the road because of the cars. As I got older and went to University and then work, I would either take a bus or drive a car. 

I came to Australia in 1977 and I continued to ride a bike with my husband for recreation. We would ride from North Wollongong to Thirroul at weekends. It stopped for a while when the children arrived. Once they were old enough, we bought them BMXs and taught them to ride.

I was still riding well into my 60’s but unfortunately, at age 65, I was diagnosed with Cancer. The debilitating cancer treatment caused me to lose self confidence and provoked poor balance. I did try to ride again, but after two falls I decided not to ride again as I could not afford to fall and break any bones.

My children and husband were still encouraging me to ride, so I suggested they buy me a tricycle. However, they bought me an e-bike with training wheels instead. While I really appreciated their thoughts, I’m still too scared to ride it, so it sits in one of the spare rooms at home. Hopefully, one day I’ll gain enough courage to ride it.

But in the meantime, my dreams were answered with the help of the Wollongong City Council.  I joined a 3 week trial program to encourage senior women from Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds to ride bikes again. First we triked (i.e. riding a tricycle) around the Illawarra Yacht Club car park to regain our confidence and then along the bike track on Lake Illawarra. We had so much fun. This has now become my future goal, to set up a “Triking & Biking Friendship Group”. 

Fancy that I first rode a tricycle at the age of 5yrs and now I’m back on a tricycle at the age of 75yrs. I feel fantastic!