Fat tyres, eight kilograms of luggage and an alarming squeak … Kristina Keneally makes her way to the office.
KRISTINA KENEALLY'S ride to work on a bike laden with shoes, make-up and files is about to get easier, thanks to a series of new cycle paths that will
cut the time she spends dodging traffic.
A path down Flinders Street will get her out of the bus lane while another in College Street will keep the cars safely away, improvements the Premier
is relishing.
''It's great, it's terrific,'' she said of the City of Sydney's $76 million, four-year project for a network of paths encouraging people like her to ride to work.
While she clearly enjoys pedalling, Ms Keneally's support for the Lord Mayor, Clover Moore's, cycling strategy stops short of matching that level of
spending.
Last month, the Premier announced the government would spend just $158 million over 10 years on projects to be detailed in the overdue bike plan.
A decade ago, when cycling was less popular, the then transport minister Carl Scully pledged $250 million for projects over the same time frame.
With federal and local governments also funding bikeways, Ms Keneally says her $158 million is sufficient, but others say it is grossly inadequate
to meet the government's goal of a six-fold increase in cycling trip
numbers by 2016.
''Kristina Keneally's love affair with bike riding stops at allocating sufficient funding to build world-class bike infrastructure for Sydney and meet the growing
enthusiasm for cycling,'' the Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said.
"The allocation of funding is going backwards in real terms.''
Evidence of the growing enthusiasm for cycling was clear this week when Ms Keneally left her Pagewood home at 6.50am for her 45-minute ride to
Parliament House, a practice she began more than a year ago when as
planning minister she decided it was a quick way to keep fit.
The closer she got to the city, the more cyclists sped past her, most of them young and male moving a lot quicker than the Premier on her old
mountain bike with fat tyres, eight kilograms of luggage and an
alarming squeak that confirmed a service was overdue. She agreed the
risks of getting hit discouraged many women from riding to work, but
said there was another reason for this.
''It's a lot more complicated for women. You have to do your hair, your make-up; it requires a lot more organisation.''
Kristina Keneally is clearly well organised.
Rising before 5 am, she'd read three papers online, made lunch for two children, walked the dog and had a breakfast of reheated banana and
wholemeal pancakes before she set off.
With a handlebar-mounted Blackberry connected by bluetooth to her earpiece, she took a call from the Roads Minister, Michael Daley, as she wound
her way into town. Heavy breathing on the hillier sections was not a
problem with the phone, she said.
''I don't do radio interviews and, when ministers call, I mainly just listen.''
In traffic, faced with the challenge of cutting across three lanes of traffic, the advantages of being Premier become instantly clear.
On a bike riding behind her was ''Paul'', the beefy NSW policeman who provides protection. A specialist in don't-argue hand signals and
stay-where- you-are stares, he can stop any car from getting too close,
ensuring the Premier gets to work looking as relaxed as she did at the
start of the ride.
