Bro. Henri, Bro. Michel (Novice Master), me and my fellow novices Bro. Romain (Togo) and Bro. Lamy (Haiti)

It was during my Noviciate whilst cycling with Bro. Henri in the beautiful Basque region of France, on the western end of the Pyrenean mountains, that I caught the cycling virus. There is something very special about cycling when treated as a sport. It can be a most exhilarating, physically draining yet inspiring sport  (especially when riding up a mountain road, busting your lungs and legs trying to stick close to the rear wheel of someone in front of you who is fitter than you are!). As well as getting me fitter, it has also helped me (together with mountain hiking) to have a greater appreciation of nature, of the natural contours and features of the land around us, of this God-inspired, beautiful, awesome world that we live in. And it has also given me many long-lasting friendships.

La Rhune, the westernmost mountain in the Pyrenees

I returned to England after my year in France to do a teacher training year and then start teaching here in Liverpool at our school, St. Francis Xavier's College. The Brothers agreed to by me a decent bike as I was very keen to carry on "serious" cycling. I joined a local club, but was more interested in reasonably quick, long-ish rides (40 to 80 miles in the Winter, 60 to 150 miles in the Summer) than in road-racing or time-trialing. Cycling had already given me so much in my life that I decided I would try to use my love of cycling to help others. So, in May of 1992, I undertook a two-day sponsored cycle from Liverpool to Southampton (my home town - 236 miles) to raise money for Bosnia. During the next three years I did three further rides (Liverpool - Land's End, 4 days ; Liverpool - Lourdes, 6 days ; John O'Groats - Land's End, 8 days) to raise money for schools run by my order in Uganda and Rwanda.

3-week French summer cycling camp through Brittany and S. England - here at Glastonbury

During the four years I spent studying in Paris (Theology and Philosophy, 1995-99), I rode with a club around the countryside outside Paris. I also had the opportunity to get involved in itinerant Summer Cycling Camps for 13 to 15 year-old boys run by some of my French confreres, as well as a cycling pilgrimage with five other people (including my good friend Bro. Henri) from Landerneau in Brittany to Santiago de Compostella (the shrine of St. James) in North-West Spain.

Now that I have returned to teaching here in Liverpool, I've been a member of Birkenhead North End Cycling Club for the last 4 years and go riding with friends in the club at weekends when I can.

Friends from Birkenhead North End

Catching the cycling virus....

(member of Birkenhead North End Cycling Club and rider of numerous solo sponsored rides - 8 since 1992 of between 2 and 16 days)

In 1990, I went to Ciboure in the south-west of France to do my first year of training to become a Brother - the Noviciate. With me were two other "novices"; one from Haiti and the other from Togo in West Africa. Two French Brothers were in charge of our group. One of them, Brother Henri, the Assistant Novice Master, was a very keen long-distance road cyclist and mountain hiker. I had brought my bike with me to Ciboure as I had heard that it might come in handy. Up until then the only cycling I had ever done was the daily 10 mile round trip to and from my secondary school which I started to do when I was in the 5th Year.