IT'S time to put on your cycling best, dust off your jersey, shift gears and ride into Ballarat in Central Victoria as the city's Gold Museum celebrates the Festival of Spokes on October 31.
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From 10am- 3pm, families can visit the museum for free to learn about the history of bikes and cycling, bike safety, and see a range of bikes from an early velocipede to the 20th-century racing bicycle.
Catch cyclist Damien Kierl in a heart-stopping race as he tries his luck on a penny-farthing against a modern cyclist and a hobby horse rider, and see cycling fashion come alive in true gentleman style with Fashions in Time.
The day marks the start of two new exhibitions at the Gold Museum.
Running until April 3, On Your Bike! will take visitors on a journey back in time.
The first bicycles in Ballarat were met with a mixture of bemusement, curiosity and criticism from locals, but Ballarat became a hub for bicycle manufacturing from the 1890s as the mining and metal industry declined. Former metal workers and miners moved into bicycle production, making the city one of Australia's strongest bicycle manufacturing centres.
The second exhibition, Freewheeling: Cycling in Australia, runs until January 31 and explores more than 140 years of cycling in Australia.
(03) 5337-1107, www.sovereignhill.com.au/gold-museum-ballarat
