Nik for short works too, especially here in Australia.

In the Soviet Union where I lived the first 25 years of my life, not every kid had a bike. I didn’t. Not because my parents didn’t have the money for one. It’s a bit more tragic – the country, run on the command economy’s souse, couldn’t make enough bikes for everyone.

No secondhand market either because why would you sell a chattel (not just a bike) if you can’t easily replace it with a new thing? And if you don’t need it, plenty of relatives or friends will take whatever you don’t need. A bike? Any day mate.

Where I’m going with this, is – I’ve had a soft spot for bikes since I don’t remember when.

I got one eventually (long story) and then I knew. I knew why I wanted one all these years: freedom. Yeah it’s a cliche, I know. What else can I say.

I loved roaming around my city, aimlessly 9 times out of 10. No one knew where I was. I liked that.

And the city, a former fort of the Russian Empire in North Caucasus, now I knew it like a cab driver. Sort of. Pretty good for a kid anyway.

This is how I ended up racing them, the bikes I mean.

Loving the machine, I jumped at a mere mention of the word race when a cycling coach called me up on the street, just like that, and said: Do you want to race?

I was 12 and 6 years later, in 1984, I won, with my teammates, the junior worlds in a team time trial.

The gold medal opened the door to the elite national team where I met, and raced with, a bunch of uber talented, supremely focused, and vigorously disciplined racers.

Racers, yeah that’s the best way to describe them. They lived and breathed a race (another cliche, sorry). I’ll double down: they lived a race 24/7.

Being frank with you, I didn’t like it that much. I mean being focused and what not. Racing, up to this point, was kind of easy for me. Pain and all, of course, but almost every time I put my mind, mind first for me, and the legs to it, winning a race that is, it worked.

Not with these guys and many more from other teams. They did it hard, racing that is, and I learned how hard quickly, first race exactly.

Which is why I thought, you know what, I’ll take it easy the first two seasons, see what is what and who is who. In other words, I made a fatal mistake.

The mistake was, in that system, in the USSR, in its sports version, no one waits for nobody. You’re either in 100% or, if we find out you’re not, we cut you off. Back to your home team, see you later.

I let the foot off the gas for a moment and never been able to put it down again, not down enough anyway.

I guess this explains why I write about cycling. Huge chunk of me grew out of that racing period of my life and everything that went with it: travel, friendships, and crazy stories. As politicians like to say – the formative years.

Enjoy.