Random reminder

Press, 12 July 1988, Page 30

Random reminder

BICYCLES BUILT FOR WHO? He used to be a keen cycle racer, and has a collection of labelled T-shirts to prove it, now that he’s getting old — over thirty — and working in the more sedentary world of bicycle selling. He’s' even admitted partial defeat to the theory that the pedal-powered wheel is the greatest, and allowed his spouse to own a car, but the car has to live in the car-port. The garage is sacred, and contains his bicycle collection: the battered ten-speed he won his first iron-man race on, a fatwheeled small bike for mountain riding, if he’s ever near a mountain again, and two very expensive bikes carefully designed to look ordinary so thieves will overlook them, for when the two of them head off into the country for picnics. (The bike he actually rides to work is a mere three-speed, and lives in the bike shed, but that’s another story.) When an old friend from competition days wrote from Canada to say he and his wife were about to visit New Zealand, he was delighted, and insisted they

> must stay with him, and use some of his bikes to see the country near-by. They duly arrived, and the next day, after he’d gone to work, his spouse helped them plan where they wanted to go, and unlocked the garage to get out the two best bikes. But ... oh dear. While one was ready to go, the other had a flat tyre. She looked for the special bike pump that fitted their special tyres, but it was nowhere to be seen. One of them would have to ride the sacred old ten speed. But ... it was partly dismantled because he’d decided to overhaul it. The mountain bike, then ... but both the guests were tall, and even with the seat adjusted, looked ridiculous. “Let’s go for a drive, and on the way, call into the shop and get a special bike pump ... you can go riding after lunch,” his spouse suggested. So guess who had gone to work with the car keys in his pocket, from when he’d collected his friends at the airport? Old cyclists never die, they just glide away, brick-red with embarrassment.