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I love my bikes. They're noble steeds, invaluable tools, tickets to freedom, a declaration of all sorts of good, green, huggy vibes. And loads of fun. So it's only fair that I sing a bit of praise to bicycles old and new.
Current Bikes
| #09 |
Dave |
Cannondale Bad Boy |
| Dave's my workhorse bike, tricked out with heavy-duty commuter kit and a BOB Yak trailer. Based around the Bad Boy, which was among the first of the production fast flat-bar urban bikes on the market. He'll go anywhere, lug any load, and was best described as a "Chinese delivery bike on performance-enhancing drugs". I've ridden centuries on him, gone off-road, hauled a trailer full of trees and carved fast heavy traffic. Dave was bought with one of these public-sector interest-free loans. Since 2001 we've done 12,000 miles together: he is a Noble Steed and should be in my grave goods |
| #10 |
Nero |
Mercian Track |
| A classic steel fixie in a 1980s-retro style (Campag Delta brakes, oh yes), Nero is a cruel, cruel bike. He makes me attack hills - me! - and is relentless on the flat. There's no rest on this one, but the tradeoff is the beautiful Zen thing that you get on any fixie. One day, I'll take him to a velodrome and hammer his balls off. |
| #11 |
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Moulton XMR-1 |
| Old-model Moultons are great around town but are too bouncy for big lardy riders doing long journeys in hilly terrain, but they'd make excellent short-wheelbase recumbents. I'm converting this one over an -ahem- extended period of time. This thing will burst out of the shed and terrorise the world - shortly before falling apart at the welds. |
Old Bikes
In the Stables of Valhalla, fondly remembered, these old bikes jostle for glory.
| #08 |
Dr Zarkov |
Kirk Precision |
| You either love or hate these cast magnesium monsters. I think they look supremely cool, but they ride like pigs. The good doctor was a budget slicked-up MTB, used solely for urban hacking around, and sported a stolen Sainsbury's basket and a flagpole. Some villains stole Dr. Zarkov one evening, perhaps because it was the time of the 2001 fuel protests and I had a big green-slogan flag. |
| #07 |
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Raleigh Pioneer |
| A cheap and cheerful commuter, bought because it was the best I could afford for the same cost as three months' bus fare - a Faustian deal with a bank who didn't want to loan me any more money! The ride was eminently predictable and low-hassle, not fun but functional. He served me well enough until I left him outside a pub overnight. When I returned, he was nowhere to be found. Poor thing. |
| #06 |
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Alan Guerciotti |
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The only bike I ever sold because of lack of use, a shameful way to end any relationship. This beautiful super-light glued-lug aluminium frame is now a collector's classic, and rode very smoothly. It was a little too whippy for my comfort on the road, but it was a superb machine on fast, hard forest trails. The frame was even manufactured for a while specifically as a cyclocross machine. What do you mean, you can't take an ultralight bike offroad? |
| #05 |
Mutant |
Moulton Deluxe |
| Back in, oh, 1988 or so, a group of friends and I had a deeply experimental fetish summer playing with Moultons. Simon's ended up pearl-white and stripped down, Mike's was cut down too far and folded in on itself, and mine was resprayed in primary red and yellow and served as a hack bike for six or seven years before its four-speed hub gear disintegrated and its rear fork expired. It is still the only bike I've had which was plush over cobbles and on which you could wear a long goth coat in safety. Great fun. |
| #04 |
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Townsend roadie |
| My first real bike build and my first performance bike, a 531c road frame which I put together into a mid-level racer. Campag Gran Sport, ah, those were the days, cake-stops and boozy wobbles home with Wonder lights that threw a useless Rorschach pattern on the road. Eventually he was stolen from outside a pub, and I used the insurance money to buy the Alan. |
| #03 |
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Raleigh Merlin |
| Eee, I were such an early adopter when I were a lad. This steel Raleigh was the first of the hybrids and father to the Pioneer - it had seven-speed index shifting (Shimano Posi-Drive with a solid wire cable) and was a great commuter and paper-round bike. Eventually I sold it to buy the Townsend. |
| #02 |
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Raleigh Roadrunner |
| My first "real" bike with gears and mudguards and everything - this was the bike on which I learned to ride on the roads, first playing duckling with Mum, then riding solo when I went to Middle School. This was when I really got hooked on the huge freedom trip that cycling really is. Okay, so I really wanted a Grifter, but hey, this bike still rocked. Eventually, of course, I outgrew it and traded up to the Merlin. |
| #01 |
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Raleigh Tomahawk |
| How can you not love your first bike, especially when it's a cut-down singlespeed version of the famous Chopper? It took me ages to learn to ride this thing, Dad in a car-park holding onto the back and swearing as I fell off in tears and bloody knees yet again. But I did get it in the end, and that was me doomed to a life of pedalling. |
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