A year and a lifetime ago

Last year, on Mayday, I bought a bike. It was a mountain bike, an Apollo. I bought it to replace the other mountain bike I already owned, which I just couldn't seem to get on with. That was a Durango ladies bike I got from a garage sale four years previously, and I had hardly ridden it, because it just didn't agree with me. I called it my lesbian bike. Today, I've given it away. It's going to one of little petal's daughters, the one who I sometimes call hundred-pound-buttocks. She is taller than me, and most definitely bigger than me in nearly every respect. I hope that she gets on with the bike, the story of which can be found here What goes up...: I was riding on a Lesbian bike.

I got that bike because I wanted a mountain bike, and the two other bikes I owned weren't really rideable. One was mouldering away outside the house, and the other, my proper bike, was mouldering away inside my stores, having stood on the platform for 10 or more years being choked with bindweed. I recently took the other bike up to the dump when I cleaned up the platform ready for the party. Yesterday and today, smitten by pangs of guilt, I got my proper bike out of the gloom of the stores and did what I could to make it rideable again. It and I go back a long way, and I feel guilty about ignoring it for so long. But, like Mr Toad, I was smitten by a vision and left sitting in the dust going 'poop-poop'. Like Mr Toad, I have recently come to my senses, realised what I have nearly lost through my profligate nature, and like Mr Toad, I am reclaiming that which was mine and was neglected.



This is my bike, as it was when I rescued it from the stores; chain rusted up, tyres flat and cracked, saddle dry and mould-covered. But 21 years ago, it and I were inseparable. I never let it out of my sight.

So what happened? Why did I stop riding it and leave it standing outside, and then bury it away in the stores to gather dust, when it had meant to much to me? I'm ashamed to admit it was purely pride. I got tired of being jeered at when I rode it around in England. Abroad, in Scandinavia, it had been a talking point. But back in England, it was an oddity, a laughing-stock for teenagers, and I became embarrassed by it. When a new fancy came along, just like Toad, I followed willingly, caught up in a new dream.

But now I've made amends. I've cleaned it up, put new tyres and tubes on the wheels, and a new chain, cleaned up the front Dynohub, freed the sticking cables, un-jammed the rear derailleur changer, and put a modern bag on it so that I can take the camera out and wander round the lanes again.





And here's what we found in the hedgerow just behind where I took the photo. The cornflowers are out already.

I shall probably sell my mountain bike I bought a year ago, because I realise now that I have too many toys to look after. I can't love them all as much as I should, and I owe a lot to my proper bike. It and I go back a long way, and travelled a lot of roads together, and I hope I shall start doing it again in the future, when things have settled. It still needs a lot doing to it; all the ravages of 5000 miles in Scandinavia, all the neglect of 15 years disuse, and the out-dated equipment; those things won't be put right in a Bank-holiday weekend. The main thing I need to do is get a better saddle, that old one nearly broke my knackers.

Afterthought:

In case you're wondering why I feel such an affinity to my old bike, try reading Flann O'Brien's Third Policeman.