In the cracked light of Sydney’s Inner West, The Bike traces three relentless days in the life of Steve, a speed addict and small-time dealer fighting to stay high, stay alive and stay free.
His bike is his only freedom in a world ruled by cops, junkies, and the endless cycle of addiction. Each hour drags him closer to pension day, the next score, the next sleep, the next fragile reprieve. It’s the only thing he can control in a world driven by speed, desperation, and the fading hope of escape.
Inspired by the Italian New Wave cinema of the 1950s, particularly Vittorio De Sica’s The Bicycle Thief, The Bike is drawn from the shadows of addiction and the fragile beauty of endurance; a raw, unflinching portrayal of the stark poetry of survival, the human struggle for freedom, dignity, and the survival amid urban decay.
A Vogel Literary Award contender and runner-up (Highly Commended).
Dirty Realism, Documentary Realism
About The Author
Jeremy Aitken has worked at many things, but writing has always been the quiet force shaping his life. He has taught Academic English at UNSW in Sydney, Human Services at the Australian College of Applied Professions, and has also taught at Taylors College Sydney, which provides pathway programs for students entering the University of Sydney. Across these teaching roles, he has shared his love of language, narrative, and the complexities of the human condition. Click on the links below to read some of his articles and past writing.
Beyond academia, his working life has been strikingly diverse: he has served as a COVID tester during the pandemic, worked as a first aid officer for MMA events, and even spent time as a meat processor for Primo Meat Products, experiences that inform the depth, grit, and grounded realism of his writing.
His published works Crystal Street and The Lotus Eater draw on a semi-autobiographical lens, blending lived experience with documentary realism. His novel The Bike, now available for purchase, was shortlisted for the Vogel/Australian Writing Award. Seen as his most intimate and ambitious project, The Bike captures the poetry of survival: addiction, fractured identity, and the interior worlds of those without a voice. It seeks to honour lives often overlooked, giving them narrative space and emotional dignity.
A lover of rainforests and renewal, Jeremy left Sydney to live in a small cottage deep in the World Heritage–listed Kuranda rainforest of Far North Queensland. There he rebuilt his life through recovery, writing, and radical change. His upcoming novel Melted explores transformation, identity, redemption, renewal, and love, continuing his commitment to stories shaped by courage, honesty, and reinvention.
