Sawatsky Sign-Off: B.C. man inspires smiles with penny-farthing bike [Video]

DUNCAN, B.C. –

Although Mitch Guindon makes climbing up to ride a penny-farthing bicycle look easy now, there was once a time when he would have found it daunting.

“I was a very shy, weak, sick kid,” Mitch says. “I didn’t have a lot of confidence in my ability.”

To appreciate how he eventually got the gumption to stand with one foot balanced on the seat of the precarious penny-farthing, and stretch the other leg straight back in the air, we need to go back to when Mitch was 12.

“We had enough, but not extra,” Mitch says of his childhood. “I needed to come up with my own money.”

So Mitch got his first job at a bike store. It helped give the once-weak kid the strength and confidence to become a competitive and accomplished BMX bike racer in his teens.

“When it came to doing that were scary,” Mitch says, “I …