In late summer my family took up Sunday bike rides around the myriad Albury-Wodonga cycling tracks; our preschooler travelled in a carriage hooked up to my husband's bike. She simply sat back and enjoyed the ride, only piping up on the East Albury hills: "Go faster my footman!".

The rest of us put more legwork into the scenic trips and I regretted taking so long to get our cycling act together.

During 1989 I rode a bike every day for the whole year, except possibly Christmas Day and the Easter long weekend.

Everyone biked to school, soccer practice, the hairdresser, the town library and to the shops on weekends. Most youth rode to the night club at midnight Saturday and home by 5am via the bakery. Pump up da house and then pedal power home.

I do not remember being driven to school once. It’s not like it didn’t rain; I was living on the rainy plains of West Coast Denmark as an exchange student. Sensible folk just wore raincoats.

For the Danes, riding is just a way to get around town; it’s not sport and recreation to them. The health benefits are simply a happy byproduct of their principal form of transport. 

Over there cyclists never wore lycra, which was a great comfort to a rapidly-expanding Rotary exchange student who’d fallen for the "Vienna Bread” (English translation of what Danes call Danish pastries)!

My second host family ran a special needs cycling group, which took weekly tandem bike rides out of town. I joined them one Tuesday afternoon, when they told us we’d be travelling 28 kilometres through three villages and back home again.

“Are you kidding?” I said in my best schoolgirl Danish with a Corowa twang.

“We could book a room at the caravan park halfway and come back tomorrow.”

I was more a Rennie bus kid kind of girl; I didn’t do long distances on a bike pedalling into gale-force winds blowing off the North Sea.

However, the ride took us through pretty countryside and picturesque villages and it never got dark because it was a northern summer many moons ago. It was one of the highlights of my whole year away.

Last year we enjoyed our weekly bike rides on the Border until early spring when a hot-under-the-collar magpie swooped my daughter and I five times all the way along our street coming home.

The magpie didn't bother my footman husband and his bike carriage princess passenger. Royalty, of course!

We decided to stop the bike rides until summer.

Summer was hot so we agreed we'd get back on the bikes in autumn.

Busy in autumn and then ripped off with an early winter, which brought no end of colds and viruses, we waited for warmer climes.

Late August looked to be perfect, we all agreed. 

We got all the bike gear ready for our ticket to ride and had one splendid Sunday outing this month.

Later flicking through my Facebook feed and The Border Mail news conference list, I was horrified to see the magpies were out in force again … already!

However, instead of settling for one perfect ride a year, I plan to channel my inner Dane and give riding a royally red hot go this year.

No lycra though, I promise.