Not even three bouts of cancer, losing his spleen and breaking his femur four years ago during the Great Australian Bike Ride can dim 84-year-old cyclist Geoffrey Hawkins’ life-long passion for cycling.
The retired engineer was on the Gold Coast this week competing in road cycling at his first Pan Pacific Masters Games.
“When my doctor told me I had cancer I told him not to tell me about it,” laughed Hawkins.
“I said, ‘you found it, you fix it!’”
The Bathurst Cycling Club member estimates he rides an average of 30 to 60 kilometers per day, six out of seven days per week and between 12,000 and 15,000 kilometres each year.
Before and after his Gold Coast 2012 races, Hawkins walks around, talking and joking with his fellow riders as though they were all old friends.
“It’s great fun here,” he said smiling. “Then again, I have fun everywhere I go.”
And Hawkins is no slouch in the saddle.
He competed at the 2011 Australian Masters Games in Adelaide where he won six gold medals, one silver medal and the Time Trail Masters Cyclist of the Year award.
And the spritely medal magnet, who cheekily says he also pedals in his ‘spare time’, has no plans of ending his cycling career any time soon.
He is looking to go overseas in February to compete in the New Zealand Masters Games and have another go at gold at the Australian Masters Games in Geelong in October, where he will spread the word about the Gold Coast’s Pan Pacific Masters Games.
The new system was born here and filagra this is not something that we would like to see. Caverta whilst better in some elements but not significant for us.
