This post is mostly for Andy in Germany.
For my birthday this year, one of my good friends, M., bought me half (well, eight fifteenths of) a bike and I made up the difference.
Today, I took it for its first outing – to my local Edinburgh Cycles to acquire the things needful for attempting to ride it to work and home again without dying.
It soon became clear to me that this cycling malarkey was less simple than I remember it being as a child (or indeed, before my previous bike was pinched). For starters, I needed to find keys in the flat for the:
- back door
- bike shed
- back gate
- bike lock
It seems that I’ll be needing reinforced pockets:
Once these were found, I had to go down the stairs to lock the front door. Then it was off into the wild blue back yard. The bike survived the ride to the shop admirably. I, however, did not. Icy air, a hacking cough and levels of fitness lower than a snake’s limbo-dancing efforts combined with a reasonable slope to render me somewhat struggling to continue.
Following discussion with one of the guys in the shop, I purchased a mud guard, lights and fresh bar grips. The ride home was somewhat simpler, although when I stopped to pick up food for dinner, I realised that the removable front wheel wasn’t entirely simple to remove on account of the brakes and then fought to get my unwieldy D-lock through the wheel, the bike frame and the railings I was attaching it to.
Returning home I encountered the gate:
Thankfully, it was relatively easy to grab and open the lock and then to work the latch allowing access to the yard. Pausing only to take some pictures, I moved some junk from the bike shed to the mini shed and stowed my newly-mud-guarded prize away for safe keeping, went upstairs and unpacked all my shiny bike-related bits and pieces:
And, as requested, here are the pictures of the trip,featuring the bike as it was put away – the bar grips will be added at some point this week – and the contents of the bike shed: