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      • Gertie's Bar - The Musical
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Wheeling Matilda

The Story of Australian Cycling

by Jim Fitzpatrick

'... the book on Australian cycling history that should be read before any others'. Bicycles Network Australia
A limited number of autographed copies of Wheeling Matilda (paperback) and The Bicycle and the Bush (original Oxford University Press, 1st edition, hardback, with dust jacket) are still available, at $35 each.

If you want copies, phone me at 04 3810 3633, or fill out the CONTACT US form (right), indicating which books, the address you want them sent to, and your phone number. I will provide you with my bank deposit details, and post them to you immediately.

CONTACT US

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Paperback, 200 pp, 120 illustrations; ISBN: 978-0-9871437-1-6

Buy the book from Amazon.
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Listen to interviews of Jim Fitzpatrick.
on Australian cycling history.

Margaret Throsby's ABC Classic FM MIDDAY program,  6 May 2013; replayed 14 Oct 2016.
Trevor Chappell's ABC OVERNIGHTS program, 27 May 2013. 
Jeff McLean, 88.9 WYNFM, Werribee Victoria, 26 July 2014.


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Bullfinch General Store, West Australian Goldfields, circa 1896.
The island continent of Australia and the bicycle seem almost to have been made for one another. From 1893 the machine was adopted over the next two decades for more varied uses, and was routinely ridden over greater distances as part of daily rural life, than anywhere else on earth.


Explorers, gold-miners, trail-blazers, preachers, sheep-shearers and early film-makers covered amazing distances in the most challenging conditions, mounted on two wheels and powered only by human energy.



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Melbourne street, World War II, during petrol restrictions.
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Two Tasmanian shearers who worked the Victorian and New South Wales shearing circuits.

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A bicycle pad south of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, part of a sytem dating from 1893 and in use until the 1903s, when this photo was taken.
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Cycling on George Street, Sydney, in 2013 ...
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... and circa 1900, both photos from same intersection.

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Australia, with only 23,000,000 people, is an international cycle racing powerhouse. The Speed Dome, Western Australia
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Jim Fitzpatrick spoke at the outdoor Sydney Bicycle Film Festival before the screenings began, October, 2012.