On My Own Two Wheels: Back in the Saddle at Sixty

O'Doherty, Malachi

ISBN 10: 0856408891 / ISBN 13: 9780856408892

Published by Blackstaff Press Ltd, 2012

About this Item

Most items will be dispatched the same or the next working day. A copy that has been read but remains in clean condition. All of the pages are intact and the cover is intact and the spine may show signs of wear. The book may have minor markings which are not specifically mentioned.

Seller Inventory # wbs5744610165

Bibliographic Details

• Title: On My Own Two Wheels: Back in the Saddle at Sixty
• Publisher: Blackstaff Press Ltd
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0856408891
• ISBN 13: 9780856408892
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: Good
• Weight: 250 grams

About this title

Synopsis

When Malachi was diagnosed with diabetes in 2009, just a few months before his sixtieth birthday, he knew he had to take hold of his life and make some changes; dusting down the oily old bicycle in his backyard was the first of these. This memoir tells the personal story of how the author challenged himself to cycle around Ireland during the summer of 2011, following many of the same routes that he took as a keen cyclist thirty years earlier. The book uses the journeys made by Malachi on his bicycle to discuss the author's reflections on growing older and the challenges ageing presents in terms of being able to do what you used to do. And of not losing sight of the pleasure riding a bicycle can give. The book moves between past and present - as the author looks back to a younger self and his first journeys and compares it to an older self and the second journeys - and to his father who was a champion cyclist. This book is accessible and will appeal to a popular audience. The tone is direct, frank, funny and reflective.

About the Author

Malachi O'Doherty was born in Muff, County Donegal, in 1951 and grew up in west Belfast. He has made his living mostly as a freelance journalist and broadcaster, appearing on the BBC's Sunday Sequence and Talkback programmes, writing regularly for the Belfast Telegraph and was Writer in Residence at Queen's University Belfast. He is the author of a number of books including I Was a Teenage Catholic (2003), The Telling Year (2007) and Under His Roof (2009), a series of vignettes about his father. In 2008, Malachi, approaching sixty, found that he had type 2 diabetes. This inspired him to shake the cobwebs off the old bicycle parked in his backyard and rediscover cycling - the frets, the struggles, and most of all, the joys. is book, On My Own Two Wheels, is a wonderful read for anyone 50+ - or of any age - with an interest in cycling and general health and fitness. Follow Malachi on Twitter (https://twitter.com/malodoherty), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/malachi.odoherty) and via his website http://malachiodoherty.com/