90 Years Young: Beautiful Sydney Harbour Bridge!

That moment, riding at around 30km per hour,  I saw my life before me.  

A slight ‘clunking’ noise and in horror I saw my road bike’s handle bars swing violently 90 degrees to the right.   I’d hit something.  I instinctively knew I couldn’t rectify  in time - too far gone.   I was surrounded by steel and concrete.   For a brief moment, falling, I thought ‘I won’t survive this’.  And then movement ceased.  Darkness.

It was 6.30am on a cool and grey spring morning.  I recall being amazed I was still alive as I opened my eyes, stunned.  I gazed up towards the city-side pylon.  Then the pain kicked in.  

A cyclist who had been riding behind me stopped and helped me to the side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge’s bike path. I insisted I was ok but I knew I wasn’t.  My left arm had blown up like a balloon, likely broken, and blood was gently bubbling out of my right thigh.  I later realised that my pointy-ended brake had pierced my thigh like a dagger, causing the deep gushing wound.  To this day, I have a massive scar and muscle dent as a visual reminder. 

My mobile phone had been flung 10 metres ahead and the kind cyclist retrieved it for me and rang 000.  Half an hour later, I saw the paramedics with their mobile trolley stretcher speed-walking up the bridge bike path to retrieve me - a somewhat surreal sight.  Much later they told me they had found a small bike bag on the path which was the likely culprit of my fall.  

Just one of many vivid memories I have of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.  Another, The March for Reconciliation in 2000.  I’d only just arrived in Sydney two years earlier and felt privileged to experience this momentous moment for Australia.

Here are some amazing facts you need to know:

-  More than 70 bridge designs were submitted  and there was even a suggestion to fill in the harbour!

-  The steel structure is entirely self-supporting.  The granite pylons were added purely for decoration and to counter the critics that claimed that no bridge of such a span could bear the load without granite support.  Chief Engineer John Bradfield justified the use of granite saying “future generations will judge us by our works”.  The additional cost of granite over pre-cast concrete was 240,000 pounds.

-The pylons are 89 metres high, 68 metres across and 48 metres long; the        weight of the steelworks is 52,8000 tonnes; the concrete on the bridge is 95,000 cubic metres.

- Around 18,000 cubic metres of granite blocks were hewn and carved (by skilled Aberdeen stone masons, Italians and Australians) in Granite Town near Moruya and then shipped up the coast to Sydney. 

- The Sydney Harbour Bridge is the world’s widest and tallest steel-arch bridge; 134 metres above sea level (highest point of arch); 503 metres in length; 49 metres wide at a weight of 39,000 tonnes.  6 million hand-driven rivets hold the structure together and 1500 people per year were employed to build her. 

- It costs at least 25 million dollars per year to maintain the bridge.

- The bridge was massively over engineered to withstand enormous loads.  Amazing foresight when you think that back in 1932, cars were still a novelty.

- 160,000 vehicles and 480 trains cross the bridge each day.

I have cycled across the bridge countless times and regularly walk across it on Sundays - just for the hell of it.  Breathing in the salty harbour winds swirling around me, it feels great to be alive.  High up on that magnificent structure, looking out towards the Heads.  I agree with the poet Kenneth Slessor that the bridge is a living creature as it gently trembles and shudders under the weight of traffic.  

Happy Birthday Sydney Harbour Bridge and I can’t wait to celebrate your 100th birthday in 2032!