Noel

The Team from Humans of Christchurch Ōtautahi

“I took to bikes from a very young age, I got into Penny Farthing riding when I was 12. There were Penny Farthing races happening in Oamaru and I asked a guy if I could have a go on one. Half an hour later, I won my first race, and six months later, I built my first Penny Farthing from scratch. I’ve built about 56 Penny Farthings in my time, there are bikes of mine all over the world.

I'm the type that has a bike for every kind of cycling. There are project bikes, I always tend to have projects on the go. I work as much as possible with recycled materials, so I'll have all these projects going, but they may be completely still until such a resource is available. I grew up in a household with a workshop. We strapped a chainsaw to a Raleigh 20 and ripped around the neighborhood, so I was very familiar with motorized bikes.

I love e-bikes as a great form of transport. I can get out to places that would literally be out of my range on a normal bike, I just don't have quite the same steam as I used to. And e-bikes make even the hills flat, I love the freedom I have.

After the earthquakes there was a major issue with bike theft. At one point, we were losing over 200 bikes a week in Christchurch. I started the stolen bikes group on Facebook with the mission of trying to combat it, that's been going solidly for the last 10 years.

Back then, bikes were maybe two grands worth that were getting pinched. Nowadays you've got bikes that are worth more than cars so it's become even more critical that groups like mine exist. I'd love it if we didn't need to exist, but unfortunately, we do. We’re getting multiple bikes back, empowering people, teaching people how to secure their bikes. We're actually making a difference.

We have a zero tolerance for people asking for money, no one's allowed to accept rewards at all. If people insist on giving rewards, we say, give it to charity. It's cyclists helping cyclists, that’s how it should be. I like the fact that Christchurch is one of those cities that if you break down on the side road, another cyclist will stop for you. Christchurch really is a bike city.”