Bay Harbour: May 16, 2018

PAGE 8 Wednesday May 16 2018
BAY HARBOUR
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Sandy Bay cyclist, 84, takes on Budapest
• By Sarla Donovan
FOR MOST 84-year-olds,
clocking up 100km a day
on a bike would be a tough
ask, especially after two knee
replacements and a hip pin.
Not so for Sandy Bay’s Eric
Hunter.
Age is no barrier for this
former Liverpudlian, and he’s
delighted to be amongst a group
of 17 mostly-kiwis taking a 13-
day bike tour of Budapest in July.
“You have to bear in mind it’s
not a race,” he says. “You’ve got
all day to do 100km so you can
stop for coffee and lunch and
afternoon tea and then arrive
at the day’s destination by 4pm
usually.”
He’s already pretty fit, clocking
up around 250km a week on his
trusty yellow Carrerra road bike.
These days the steep uphill
climb from Governors Bay to
Summit Rd gets a pass.
Instead, he prefers to drive
over to Princess Margaret Hospital
and ride out from there with a
couple of pals.
“My racing days are over so I
don’t have to do those steep rides
anymore.”
Eric Hunter was born in Liverpool
and rode for England in the
early 1950s, including the multistage
Tour of Ireland and the Isle
of Man International Road Race.
He was also a non-travelling
reserve for the 1956 Melbourne
Olympics.
Though he started riding for
England at around age 19, it
turned out to be only a threeyear
stint when his work as an
ON YA BIKE:
86-year-old
Eric Hunter is
heading off to
a two-week
cycling tour of
Budapest.
apprentice chef demanded he
make a choice.
“I was told I needed to make
my mind up whether I wanted to
be a chef or a cyclist.”
Knowing cycling wouldn’t
last forever, he eased back and
concentrated on a career in the
kitchen.
Back in those days, you had to
do an apprenticeship before going
into hotel management.
In 1962 he married cycling
enthusiast Maureen, a loyal supporter
of the Merseyside Wheelers
Cycling Club.
Eric himself rode for the Melling
Wheelers, which later became the
Kirkby Rd Cycling Club.
The pair came to New Zealand
in 1964 to manage hotels.
But it was a culture shock for
Eric, who’d been used to England’s
residential hotels.
“New Zealand hotels were
more like pubs back then – and
they were drinking pubs. Remember
the days of six o’clock
closing? I’d never had anything
to do with that (sort of thing.)
And I was surprised to find the
Tourist Hotel Corporation were
the only ones allowed to build
hotels but they could only do so
in national parks.”
Eric and Maureen worked at
the Chateau Tongariro on Mt
Ruapehu and newly-opened
Avon Motor Lodge in Christchurch,
before returning to England
in 1966.
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