Brisbane from the back of a trike

Green Cabs

SITTING PRETTY: Brisbane's Green Cabs are a fun way to see the sights.

Relevant offers

Australia

Hospo veteran plans six new restaurants The best of Australia's island life Parasols and petit fours On the right wavelength Outback drivers to the fore Wheel good time at bikefest Glamping on Cockatoo Island Tall story starts with first step Cycle South Australia Islands in the sun

Soldier, fitness instructor and Green Cab cyclist Hamish Gray is a fit young bloke.

But even he will not take on the hills of Brisbane's Spring Hill.

On Friday and Saturday nights Hamish pedals his 21-gear Green Cab around the city's nightclubs, making up to A$200 on a good night.

And while he's happy to negotiate streets crowded with Christmas revellers, there is one place he won't go.

"Spring Hill I pretty much don't go up," Hamish says with a laugh.

"But the hardest of them all is going to the Valley.

"The incline near the Orient Hotel is just really difficult.

"You pretty much get down to the lowest gear going up there."

Twenty-one years ago two young men started riding Brisbane's first-ever pedi-cabs as Brisbane celebrated World Expo 88.

The venture didn't last, but 20 years later the same two guys took the bike handles between their teeth and launched Green Cabs.

One year on, businessmen Steven Kenway and David Burgin have eight cycle taxis, and have started offering set tours along Brisbane's riverside ranging in price from A$10 to A$25 from the big ferris wheel on South Bank over the Goodwill, Victoria or Kurilpa bridges and back around to South Bank.

The bikes are essentially broad-tyred mountain bikes with a seat which can fit three adults.

But the third must be a very, very slender woman. Realistically the Green Cabs take two adults.

At night time, most of passengers are intoxicated to different levels, Hamish tells, while during the day, people were "more mellow."

His funniest trip was a night he pedalled a security guard around Brisbane's nightclubs.

"There was this guy I picked up from a Broncos game and he ran this security company and he asked me to take him to all these hotels that his bouncers were working at," Hamish said.

"And it took like three and half hours and it ended up at his house on top of the hill at Woolloongabba.

"Every time we stopped, he would talk to his boys at the door. I think he just liked being out with his boys. He was this big Samoan bloke about 150 kilos and his little boy. And he wasn't real light either."

Mr Kenway will tell you that his eight cycle taxis can take you anywhere from West End to the Valley, out to New Farm and even out as far as Toowong.

Everywhere except bloody Spring Hill.