So, it's only been ages since I last wrote anything in here. While the tumbleweed absent-mindedly blows across the road, and I shuffle around somewhat sheepishly in the knowledge that, incredibly, this blog is actually linked to from somewhere else (edinburghcyclechic, as it turns out, which is suitably ironic for my general predisposition to wear lycra, and occasionally even look good in it), you can listen to the muted and rather pleasant rhythm of cogs ticking round. That isn't the sound of a well-oiled dérailleur transmission, nor even a rusty squeaking one, but of my brain on the realisation that four and a half months have gone by with the first thought that nothing of note has happened.
Has it?
After Tim Brummer at Lightning sent through the replacement and much stronger boom for my P-38, back in May last year, I set off into the countryside here in pursuit of hills and railways and architecture, took a spin down to York to look at Moultons and windmills and railways and architecture, commuting as usual the rest of the time, and all the while generally enjoying the heck out of the bike. After all, it had been several months in which the bike had lain in the garage in a not-quite-rideable state. The first real outing of the new boom had of course been the day of the twelve steepest streets, but it had also cemented itself in my memory as the day that the Brake of Horrendous Squeal came into the world. For some reason the entire world supply of Kool Stop brake pads had vanished a week before, and I'd reluctantly slid in a new set of those peculiar Ashima pads, discovered they were too thick, adjusted my once meticulously set brake positions four times to try to compensate, discovered to my joy a long lost pair of Kools in a bag and slid them in, adjusted the brake position again ... and gone climbin'. And for the next 1000 miles or thereabouts the front of the bike braked just as well as it ever had before, but in the process would be sounding like an air horn.
Slowing down from 20 or 30mph, behind a car, while one's bike produces a noise like a double-barrelled Air Zound mixed with fingernails-on-blackboard, is one of the most embarassing situations I've ever known, even worse than organising a meeting for twenty people and forgetting to invite the chairperson. Worse still, it wasn't even a new situation, as I recalled my experiences of Victoria's old cable-powered Tektro discs trying to do their best in a thunderstorm. They were certainly most trying, which is why I replaced them with Hope hydraulics which turned out to be only slightly more powerful and almost as noisy. But with a P-38 you can have any brakes you like as long as they're rim brakes, so you throw money at it and buy an Avid Ultimate. Given the frankly astonishing increase in price for those twin machined aluminium arms—currently at a discounted 85 of Her Majesty's British Pounds, or £115 at full price, when the Big S's XTR is clocked at £100, and Avid's otherwise excellent Single Digit 7 comes in at an altogether less eyewatering £22—I was inclined to grin and bear it. There was method in the madness at the time I built the bike, because the Ultimate transforms to a mirror image of itself which made for tidy cable routing, and in 2007 we were still enjoying ludicrously good value on expensive components.
In a similar manner to John Ackroyd's Thrust 2, which Richard Noble and Ron Ayres later discovered was stable only under savage acceleration, my P-38 would only be quiet under savage deceleration, and while that might useful for avoiding fading discs or drums, if it had any, I was rather too aware that it wasn't so good for holding traction with skinny little bicycle tyres, even if they've worn down their herringbone pattern micro-tread to pure slicks. The rest of the time, dabbing a brake here and there for traffic lights and traffic jams, an occasional errant pedestrian, or a frequent pothole, the bike squealed unrelentingly. I even found myself digging a heel into the brake arms—sometimes the left, sometimes the right—in a hopeful attempt to quell the vibration, with both brake and rider fretting merrily to themselves.
At least twice I set-to on the bike to resolve the problem once and for all, with a little piece of folded-over breakfast cereal box for presetting the requisite toe-in of the brake pads, and despairingly it made no difference whatsoever. Last week it became all too much and I took Victoria out on the roads instead, while back home I investigated a suspicious amount of play in one side of the brake; the Ultimate runs on two pairs of 15mm sealed ballraces, not that you really needed to know that, so one ought to expect perfection. After prising off a rubber seal and finding all the grease replaced with plenty of rust, it took a heatgun, a hammer and a thin screwdriver to remove the bad ballrace which promptly committed suicide, spilling its insides onto the workbench. And, of course, the things are of a hugely proprietary type that one doesn't find stocked by places like SimplyBearings or Model & Small, being assymetric and of a size far too small for which anyone remotely technical might have any use. But heroically Avid provided a part number—genuine spare parts!—and a few days later again my local bike shop had the goods. Before this I'd actually devised a workaround using industy standard items and some skateboard bits that I would've still had to modify, and then I worked out that it was easier if just as expensive to buy the genuine things in the first place.
Buoyed by my newfound confidence in solving mechanical mysteries, I made a rudimentary Ultimate bearing press and provided a home to two brand new sealed ballraces. I was so confident in fact that my testing regime was to ride 20 metres up the road and back again, and if it didn't squeal I was in business. It didn't squeal.
And so the very next day I set out on my commute. About 30 seconds down the road, where the hill begins, I applied the brake firmly for the first time and my bike was blissfully silent! Actually, it wasn't. At this point I had to get to work, an activity involving plenty of traffic and plenty of hills, so I said something that rhymed with muddy bell and decided my back brake would have to work extra specially hard. Most of that day was spent doing worky stuff, while part of my brain was busy thinking about brake pad compounds and logical ways to rule out one component after another.
As I thought idly about the familiar (too familar, for this former student of vibration theory) relationship of natural frequencies vs. mass, spring stiffness and damping, it occurred to me that my suspicions of why Victoria's discs sometimes sing loudly to themselves, being attached to very lightweight rims and spokes, and akin to a sounding board, might translate to the little bike. After all, I already knew that both wheels were rapidly approaching rim replacement. If the rim sidewall was sufficiently worn down, perhaps that was the crucial factor. It seemed like a good idea to set up the wheel truing stand that weekend and install the new rim I'd bought ages ago while they still made them, and a happy afternoon was spent unpicking spokes and threading them into their new homes, culminating in that meditative zone of spinning a wheel, eyeballing, listening and tweaking things to perfection.
'If this doesn't do the trick,' I said to myself as I returned the wheel to my bike's fork, 'it has to be either toe-in or pad material. It has to be!' With my confidence in solving mechanical mysteries now higher than ever, this time I didn't even bother with a test ride. The next day I set out on my commute, and the first hill was pleasingly silent while the pads gently scoured the untouched brake trake of the rim. I came to the big hill, and accelerated down it. At the bottom, where a bus was setting down its passengers, I decided that slowing down might be a terribly good wheeze. I hauled on the brake, and it squealed for Britain; it was as though the last thousand miles were just the warm up. I may have said several very rude words at that point.
I stopped short of taking my bicycle to the menders, because I used to be one of them and I decided that a stupid little brake couldn't be that hard to sort. Could it? Returning to my bike at the end of the day with my multi tool in hand, I took a bit of plastic about the thickness of a credit card and wedged it behind the brake pad, and reset the toe-in on each side once and for all. It could hardly make things worse. Amazingly it didn't, and even more amazingly the brake suddenly started to behave, just like it did in the olden days. I accelerated, braked, accelerated, braked again, and ... silence. I rode the long way home with the long gradual descent, and it behaved. A few more days and it's still behaving. Hurrah!
I was going to tell you a tale of Carradice, saddlebags and Bromptons, but my back brake has started squealing.
Showing posts with label commentary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label commentary. Show all posts
March 15, 2012
January 12, 2011
With our wild kinetic dreams
The correct number of bicycles one should own is determined through a mathematical formula well known to internet-savvy cyclists. Stephen Hawking resolved not to include any formulae in A Brief History of Time because he felt each instance might halve his sales, although he did eventually relent and quote one from Einstein. I however am not out for sales, and anyway, it's only a very little formula:
So there is supposedly always another bicycle required to fill that little functional gap. It's about the need to transport a couple of bags of peat from the garden centre when you don't have a car and are too cheap for taxis; it's the need to travel with a bike on a train and take it into a hotel, and not worry about bookings or raised eyebrows; it's the need for something stable and unfalloffable for snow and black ice; it's the need for a really lightweight lowracer for smoking those roadies; it's the need for something with an all-enclosed multi-speed drivetrain and weatherproof brakes for hills and salt-encrusted winter weather; it's the need for a decent mountain bike with disc brakes and nicer front end geometry because you're tired of wearing out rims and getting a crick in your neck after 15 miles of trails. Own only one bicycle? That's crazy talk, man.
On the Team Estrogen forum there are various suggestions in the thread Do I need two bikes or one?: 'You need at least two bikes; three or four is even better.', or simply that one needs three or four. One contributor even owns the seemingly ideal 3.5 bikes (the 0.5 apparently being crash-assisted).
In the discussion Is the perfect number of bikes REALLY always N+1? on Singletrack's forum, one contributor stated that 'Four bikes is all I need, and I think that's indulgence. Couldn't go below three though.' Clearly, owning only two bikes would simply make life impossible.
During 2008-09 the Cyclechat forum hosted the discussion How many bikes should a cyclist own?. The first suggestion was the beautifully disarming 'as many as necessary'. Another view was that 'five bikes are quite sufficient, unless you like off road biking in which case you need a couple of MTBs too.' Despite six pages and 80 posts, there was little agreement reached over what the correct number of bikes was, except that the formula itself was correct, more or less. For some a more appropriate version was (n+2) or perhaps (n+3). Indeed, a contributor on the London Fixed-gear & Single-speed forum noted that multiple bicycle ownership, whether realised or aspirational, was 'worse than crack'.
The Blasphemous Biker, writing in December 2010, explained his rationale for needing three bikes. These would, in his opinion, comprise a road/touring/Audax bike, a mountain or mountain-type bike, and a bike to use in cities and in bad weather.
In fact, Peter Walker of The Guardian picked up on the (n+1) movement and the Cyclechat thread in July 2010, in his article Confessions of a serial bicycle buyer. Walker himself said 'I now own four bikes ... it makes perfect sense.' The 69 comments on that article quickly demonstrate the relatively few people who own only one bike, though one commenter (commentator?) came tantalisingly close to a magic single machine with his Rohloff-hubbed multiple-tyre optioned Thorn Enduro. At least one person picked up on the dichotomy of need vs. want, and considering the environmental impact of owning many bikes, but until it's proven that four, five, six bicycles has a greater environmental cost than one car -- especially a modern 5-seater petrol hybrid -- I remain on the side of the human power movement even with its ongoing materialism.
Fortunately there are already rules in place to help govern such desperate soul-searching and financial husbandry. Within The Rules: the simple truths of bicycle etiquette, and under Rule 12: Fundamental Principle of Bicycle Ownership, it is stated clearly that three is the minimum acceptable number, with the correct number calculated using the (n+1) equation. The three are explained in greater detail in the Badass By Association: Winter Riding discussion and may be summarised as i) a rain bike; ii) an inclement weather bike; and iii) a nice weather bike. However, one contributor helpfully pointed out that road surfaces, frame materials and frame types should be additional considerations, and '117 bikes per person' was therefore justified.
But as we saw from The Guardian, if we start to distinguish between want and need, our happy 'correctness' goes out of the window; that is to say, correctness tends towards optimality. We might, therefore, look for an empirical solution, N, to the equation
This is all fine and good, but such empiricism requires hard numbers, not just statements and good ideas. While the correct or ideal number of bicycles is clearly 'one more', we can look at reported ownership to determine a real-world optimum. Obviously it will be at least one, and presuming it to be fewer than infinity, and on the available data being post-limited to personally owned bikes rather than including those in the garage/hall/shed but belonging to other people, we must consider not just the bog-standard average but all three statistical averages, that is, is there a normal or offset-normal distribution of the results, and where are the peaks? Also to be borne in mind is the possibility that all reported results are skewed by all the I'm-not-a-cyclist, I-only-ride-to-the-park single-bikists steering clear of internet discussion forums and little surveys, and indeed, pottering around completely oblivious to the value of their collective bike usage. In fact, the oblivious might make up a statistically significant proportion of bicycle owners, if not in the absolute numbers of bicycles.
Davis, in California, reputedly has 2.1 bikes per person. A census on the DavisWiki website, with returns from December 2005 through to November 2009. suggested that across 132 wikizens there were on average 1.9 bikes per person, which is a pretty good result. Ownership was perhaps slightly adrift of statistical rigour, because the numbers ranged from one bike to as many as 18 (though perhaps understandably, not all 18 were high quality mileage machines, and not every contributor gave a precise breakdown of bikes per household member.
Closer to home, the Cyclechat discussion referred to above saw returns from 39 people and counted a total of approximately 133.5 personally owned bikes (the 0.5 referred to a tandem, whose other rider seemingly didn't participate). The average number of bikes owned was 3.4 per person, with both a median number and modal number of 3 bikes per person.
A more detailed survey, How many bikes are there in your shed/garage/house?, conducted on yACF in 2008 covered 91 forum members (accounting for repeats and updates) and a total of 511 personally owned bikes. In this survey, the average number of bicycles owned was substantially higher, at 5.6 per person, with a median number of 4 bikes, but the modal values occurred at both 3 and 5.
And on .citycyclingedinburgh, the small but succinctly named question How many bikes do you have in your possession currently?, asked in late 2009, has had at the time of writing returns from 29 people, who together own 79 bikes. Including one forum member who reported being particularly well-wheeled, the average number of bikes owned was 3.9 per person, and again both the median and modal number was 3.
So perhaps there is some truth in the Velominati definition. And in fact, the eternal question isn't limited to only pedal bikes. A Kawasaki KLR owner goes with three motorbikes as the optimum: 'One to do this, one to do that, and one you are trying to sell so you can get another one you crave to do the other.' A member of the Suzuki SV650 forum said that his significant other 'failed to comprehend why on earth I might want more than one bike at a time. The optimum number of bikes to have is four, no less.' Honda VFR owners, on the other hand, are clearly the most financially comfortable of the group (or are the most adept at finding examples that are roadworthy but ancient, and therefore cheap), suggesting that the optimum number of motorbikes must be at least six, according to one owner, to as many as nine according to another.
While a small proportion of riders manage perfectly well with only one bicycle or motorbike, the evidence for multiplicity is compelling. It may all be summarised neatly using the definition of resilience.
Jill Homer, a cyclist in Montana, owns five bicycles and, worryingly, says she doesn't actually enjoy it despite each having 'a particular function that I Can Not Live Without.' But she redeems her alarming thought of selling one, in order to make space for another, by modifying it instead. She sounds a lot like me, actually.
Perhaps at the root of 'one more bike' is our desire to try new things and competitive spirit encourages us to go faster, further, longer using less energy. You can ride bumpy, wet offroad trails using skinny road tyres on a frame with no mud clearance, but you might slide and fall off. You can ride on tarmac using tractor tyres and full suspension, but it'll be hard work. You can carry planks of wood and tow bicycles on almost any upright two wheeler, but a load bike or a trailer lets you carry more, more safely. You might be able to take your long wheelbase recumbent bike with four panniers into a hotel room, but a folding bike could make it a lot easier. Indeed, three was the Magic Number which De La Soul referred to in the 1990 single, and it looks good for cyclists and motorbikers too.
Finally we come to Bob Gannon, a photographer in Pennsylvania, who in a comment to Jill, elegantly summed up the growing awareness of Bicycle Acquisition Syndrome: 'I think you should resolve the issue by getting a larger apartment.'
C = n + 1 [1]where C is the correct number and n the current number of bikes.
So there is supposedly always another bicycle required to fill that little functional gap. It's about the need to transport a couple of bags of peat from the garden centre when you don't have a car and are too cheap for taxis; it's the need to travel with a bike on a train and take it into a hotel, and not worry about bookings or raised eyebrows; it's the need for something stable and unfalloffable for snow and black ice; it's the need for a really lightweight lowracer for smoking those roadies; it's the need for something with an all-enclosed multi-speed drivetrain and weatherproof brakes for hills and salt-encrusted winter weather; it's the need for a decent mountain bike with disc brakes and nicer front end geometry because you're tired of wearing out rims and getting a crick in your neck after 15 miles of trails. Own only one bicycle? That's crazy talk, man.
On the Team Estrogen forum there are various suggestions in the thread Do I need two bikes or one?: 'You need at least two bikes; three or four is even better.', or simply that one needs three or four. One contributor even owns the seemingly ideal 3.5 bikes (the 0.5 apparently being crash-assisted).
In the discussion Is the perfect number of bikes REALLY always N+1? on Singletrack's forum, one contributor stated that 'Four bikes is all I need, and I think that's indulgence. Couldn't go below three though.' Clearly, owning only two bikes would simply make life impossible.
During 2008-09 the Cyclechat forum hosted the discussion How many bikes should a cyclist own?. The first suggestion was the beautifully disarming 'as many as necessary'. Another view was that 'five bikes are quite sufficient, unless you like off road biking in which case you need a couple of MTBs too.' Despite six pages and 80 posts, there was little agreement reached over what the correct number of bikes was, except that the formula itself was correct, more or less. For some a more appropriate version was (n+2) or perhaps (n+3). Indeed, a contributor on the London Fixed-gear & Single-speed forum noted that multiple bicycle ownership, whether realised or aspirational, was 'worse than crack'.
The Blasphemous Biker, writing in December 2010, explained his rationale for needing three bikes. These would, in his opinion, comprise a road/touring/Audax bike, a mountain or mountain-type bike, and a bike to use in cities and in bad weather.
In fact, Peter Walker of The Guardian picked up on the (n+1) movement and the Cyclechat thread in July 2010, in his article Confessions of a serial bicycle buyer. Walker himself said 'I now own four bikes ... it makes perfect sense.' The 69 comments on that article quickly demonstrate the relatively few people who own only one bike, though one commenter (commentator?) came tantalisingly close to a magic single machine with his Rohloff-hubbed multiple-tyre optioned Thorn Enduro. At least one person picked up on the dichotomy of need vs. want, and considering the environmental impact of owning many bikes, but until it's proven that four, five, six bicycles has a greater environmental cost than one car -- especially a modern 5-seater petrol hybrid -- I remain on the side of the human power movement even with its ongoing materialism.
Fortunately there are already rules in place to help govern such desperate soul-searching and financial husbandry. Within The Rules: the simple truths of bicycle etiquette, and under Rule 12: Fundamental Principle of Bicycle Ownership, it is stated clearly that three is the minimum acceptable number, with the correct number calculated using the (n+1) equation. The three are explained in greater detail in the Badass By Association: Winter Riding discussion and may be summarised as i) a rain bike; ii) an inclement weather bike; and iii) a nice weather bike. However, one contributor helpfully pointed out that road surfaces, frame materials and frame types should be additional considerations, and '117 bikes per person' was therefore justified.
But as we saw from The Guardian, if we start to distinguish between want and need, our happy 'correctness' goes out of the window; that is to say, correctness tends towards optimality. We might, therefore, look for an empirical solution, N, to the equation
N = n + (Fd * Fe) [2]in which the absolute desirability factor, Fd, would include subjective things like price of a bicycle (or multiple bicycles) divided by expected mileage, peer group rarity, size, total inertia, and total rolling resistance; and the enabling factor, Fe, ranges from -1 to +1 and includes measures of household or relationship stability, price divided by expected salary, security of rarity, and available space.
This is all fine and good, but such empiricism requires hard numbers, not just statements and good ideas. While the correct or ideal number of bicycles is clearly 'one more', we can look at reported ownership to determine a real-world optimum. Obviously it will be at least one, and presuming it to be fewer than infinity, and on the available data being post-limited to personally owned bikes rather than including those in the garage/hall/shed but belonging to other people, we must consider not just the bog-standard average but all three statistical averages, that is, is there a normal or offset-normal distribution of the results, and where are the peaks? Also to be borne in mind is the possibility that all reported results are skewed by all the I'm-not-a-cyclist, I-only-ride-to-the-park single-bikists steering clear of internet discussion forums and little surveys, and indeed, pottering around completely oblivious to the value of their collective bike usage. In fact, the oblivious might make up a statistically significant proportion of bicycle owners, if not in the absolute numbers of bicycles.
Davis, in California, reputedly has 2.1 bikes per person. A census on the DavisWiki website, with returns from December 2005 through to November 2009. suggested that across 132 wikizens there were on average 1.9 bikes per person, which is a pretty good result. Ownership was perhaps slightly adrift of statistical rigour, because the numbers ranged from one bike to as many as 18 (though perhaps understandably, not all 18 were high quality mileage machines, and not every contributor gave a precise breakdown of bikes per household member.
Closer to home, the Cyclechat discussion referred to above saw returns from 39 people and counted a total of approximately 133.5 personally owned bikes (the 0.5 referred to a tandem, whose other rider seemingly didn't participate). The average number of bikes owned was 3.4 per person, with both a median number and modal number of 3 bikes per person.
A more detailed survey, How many bikes are there in your shed/garage/house?, conducted on yACF in 2008 covered 91 forum members (accounting for repeats and updates) and a total of 511 personally owned bikes. In this survey, the average number of bicycles owned was substantially higher, at 5.6 per person, with a median number of 4 bikes, but the modal values occurred at both 3 and 5.
And on .citycyclingedinburgh, the small but succinctly named question How many bikes do you have in your possession currently?, asked in late 2009, has had at the time of writing returns from 29 people, who together own 79 bikes. Including one forum member who reported being particularly well-wheeled, the average number of bikes owned was 3.9 per person, and again both the median and modal number was 3.
So perhaps there is some truth in the Velominati definition. And in fact, the eternal question isn't limited to only pedal bikes. A Kawasaki KLR owner goes with three motorbikes as the optimum: 'One to do this, one to do that, and one you are trying to sell so you can get another one you crave to do the other.' A member of the Suzuki SV650 forum said that his significant other 'failed to comprehend why on earth I might want more than one bike at a time. The optimum number of bikes to have is four, no less.' Honda VFR owners, on the other hand, are clearly the most financially comfortable of the group (or are the most adept at finding examples that are roadworthy but ancient, and therefore cheap), suggesting that the optimum number of motorbikes must be at least six, according to one owner, to as many as nine according to another.
While a small proportion of riders manage perfectly well with only one bicycle or motorbike, the evidence for multiplicity is compelling. It may all be summarised neatly using the definition of resilience.
"N+1 Redundancy ensures maximum uptime and continuous availability."However, UPS units and RAID arrays and duplex cabling are not normally associated with familial harmony. An additional criterion is the number of bicycles, s, at which your significant other will announce an intention to leave you if you bring home another bike. This threshold limit is normally defined as:
C = s - 1 [3]which of course is the simplistic form of equation [2], and appears as a qualifer in Rule 12. The threshold limit appears in a reworked form in another suggested modification of the original equation, again on the Singletrack forum. Known as the CHB Bike Theory of Everything we account not only for the number, n, of bikes owned currently but the number, a, of bikes made redundant by the additional two, and the number, b, representing the difference between n and the number of bikes one's significant other thinks you have. Thus:
C = n + 2 - a - b [4]If a is found to be greater than 2, there is generally an error in the types of bicycle which one might aspire to own. Clearly C must be greater than n for all n, otherwise one might reasonably assume that there is a significant risk of a rupture forming in the bicycle-time continuum.
Jill Homer, a cyclist in Montana, owns five bicycles and, worryingly, says she doesn't actually enjoy it despite each having 'a particular function that I Can Not Live Without.' But she redeems her alarming thought of selling one, in order to make space for another, by modifying it instead. She sounds a lot like me, actually.
Perhaps at the root of 'one more bike' is our desire to try new things and competitive spirit encourages us to go faster, further, longer using less energy. You can ride bumpy, wet offroad trails using skinny road tyres on a frame with no mud clearance, but you might slide and fall off. You can ride on tarmac using tractor tyres and full suspension, but it'll be hard work. You can carry planks of wood and tow bicycles on almost any upright two wheeler, but a load bike or a trailer lets you carry more, more safely. You might be able to take your long wheelbase recumbent bike with four panniers into a hotel room, but a folding bike could make it a lot easier. Indeed, three was the Magic Number which De La Soul referred to in the 1990 single, and it looks good for cyclists and motorbikers too.
Finally we come to Bob Gannon, a photographer in Pennsylvania, who in a comment to Jill, elegantly summed up the growing awareness of Bicycle Acquisition Syndrome: 'I think you should resolve the issue by getting a larger apartment.'
September 17, 2010
Tender timing
"Wanker!"
Of course, riding an odd looking bike through a conservative city's inner suburb is always going to elicit a range of wild and imaginative comments from the public. The perceptiveness of different age groups is quite interesting to note, given that my usual attire in the lessening sunshine of a late afternoon in September is frequently a nonspecific black. Black socks; grey and black shoes; black shorts; black fleece, perhaps enlivened with a hint of a shocking pink or muted blue t-shirt lurking underneath; black even is my headwear which may equally involve polystyrene or a microfibre cotton-poly mix. Eyes formerly hidden behind reflective sunglasses now plainly observe the world through UV-A and UV-B rated polycarbonate with 85% light transmission. Small children on their way to school, accompanied by their mother or father keenly restraining any bemusement, express mild wonder in their unabashed enthusiasm for the lady on the funny bike. The need to keep one's side up, however, in the cut-throat internet- and Big Brother-educated worldly socialism of both pre-teen and teenage cliques and social circles rides roughshod over any such earlier innocence and, it appears therefore, the ability to tell boy from girl. The w-word, my foot.
If such playful misidentification wasn't enough, so many times while commuting and in hot pursuit of no-one in particular, I find my onlooker to be posted on the other side of the road. I find that most annoying, in fact. In the hustle and bustle of traffic and with me moving at anything from 10mph to 30mph, it is rarely a simple matter to jam on my brakes, mirror-signal-manoeuvre, and swing around in a glorious U-turn of canted-over control of tyre versus road. And even if I could, my retort of instant, withering wit would surely and inconveniently desert me in my moment of triumph. In today's otherwise ordinary ride through an ordinary city street, a street perhaps a little worse for wear in its grubby stonework, its tracksuited, shopping bag carrying denizens and its cut-up tarmac displaying a once-proud red painted cycle lane, on a low brick wall there lay in wait a threesome of grey-clad twentysomethings. I wondered, as my head flicked around upon that single shouted word to be met by three toothy, vacant, beer lubricated grins, if they were new to the area, for Victoria and I were certainly no stranger to those parts. But, my great inertia carried me onwards without a moment's hesitation even as I held their gaze for a second longer.
I held my tongue, too, not entirely out of politeness but out of the immediate failure to conjure up that deadly verbal barrage, contrived precisely to penetrate the slow thinking mind with a short, sharp expression, while simultanously retaining a suitably supercilious delivery aimed squarely at the bows of said physically unlikely suggestion, and designed to confuse and embarrass in equal measure.
Once home of course, and with all the time in the world for such fancies, my mind started constructing the proverbial arrows.
"Feck off!"
That most endearingly sanitised insult still sits somewhat uncomfortably as a rather unbecoming turn of phrase, and would do little to further the benign reputation of a majority of road users. However, such concerns might be moot in the present company, and one must certainly admire its minimally syllabic pointedness and the effectiveness of an almost unrivalled speed of articulation.
"Tosser!"
Right back atcha! One would however still be plumbing the depths of good taste, and with articulative speed no better than before the receipient would be equally far back along the road. However, the extended û sound of the last syllable provides for a splendid lingering delivery as one speeds away.
"Takes one to know one!"
Too commonplace I think; impossibly clichéd, and even in jest would be intimating fault where in my surely holier-than-thou manner none existed. Through its everyday manner any desired insult is diluted beyond reasonable effect, and it borders on a delivery time that may be measured as 10 metres or more of tarmac, by which time the guilty party is already long gone, hidden by later vehicles and falling off one's immediate attentions.
My mind started working on effusion instead, incorporating half-remembered snatches of comedy sketches involving a man coming to repair a harpsichord, and an adaptation of litarary greatness that would have Jane Austen herself blushing furiously.
"Fair Sir, I fear not. I do find however that a strap-on is quite unable to deliver the same wonderful sensations with which I'm sure you yourself are so intimately acquainted."
Traffic lights notwithstanding, I would be quite tested to carry my voice 160 metres for the final words to my most expressive acquaintance. In the heat of the moment, I decided that in order to minimise further reaction time I should merely direct at him a look combining amusement and superiority, and thus the half-smirk, half-glare was created. The effectiveness of this approach is highly debatable, yet as I continued on my happy journey I detected no subsequent laughter.
Except mine.
Of course, riding an odd looking bike through a conservative city's inner suburb is always going to elicit a range of wild and imaginative comments from the public. The perceptiveness of different age groups is quite interesting to note, given that my usual attire in the lessening sunshine of a late afternoon in September is frequently a nonspecific black. Black socks; grey and black shoes; black shorts; black fleece, perhaps enlivened with a hint of a shocking pink or muted blue t-shirt lurking underneath; black even is my headwear which may equally involve polystyrene or a microfibre cotton-poly mix. Eyes formerly hidden behind reflective sunglasses now plainly observe the world through UV-A and UV-B rated polycarbonate with 85% light transmission. Small children on their way to school, accompanied by their mother or father keenly restraining any bemusement, express mild wonder in their unabashed enthusiasm for the lady on the funny bike. The need to keep one's side up, however, in the cut-throat internet- and Big Brother-educated worldly socialism of both pre-teen and teenage cliques and social circles rides roughshod over any such earlier innocence and, it appears therefore, the ability to tell boy from girl. The w-word, my foot.
If such playful misidentification wasn't enough, so many times while commuting and in hot pursuit of no-one in particular, I find my onlooker to be posted on the other side of the road. I find that most annoying, in fact. In the hustle and bustle of traffic and with me moving at anything from 10mph to 30mph, it is rarely a simple matter to jam on my brakes, mirror-signal-manoeuvre, and swing around in a glorious U-turn of canted-over control of tyre versus road. And even if I could, my retort of instant, withering wit would surely and inconveniently desert me in my moment of triumph. In today's otherwise ordinary ride through an ordinary city street, a street perhaps a little worse for wear in its grubby stonework, its tracksuited, shopping bag carrying denizens and its cut-up tarmac displaying a once-proud red painted cycle lane, on a low brick wall there lay in wait a threesome of grey-clad twentysomethings. I wondered, as my head flicked around upon that single shouted word to be met by three toothy, vacant, beer lubricated grins, if they were new to the area, for Victoria and I were certainly no stranger to those parts. But, my great inertia carried me onwards without a moment's hesitation even as I held their gaze for a second longer.
I held my tongue, too, not entirely out of politeness but out of the immediate failure to conjure up that deadly verbal barrage, contrived precisely to penetrate the slow thinking mind with a short, sharp expression, while simultanously retaining a suitably supercilious delivery aimed squarely at the bows of said physically unlikely suggestion, and designed to confuse and embarrass in equal measure.
Once home of course, and with all the time in the world for such fancies, my mind started constructing the proverbial arrows.
"Feck off!"
That most endearingly sanitised insult still sits somewhat uncomfortably as a rather unbecoming turn of phrase, and would do little to further the benign reputation of a majority of road users. However, such concerns might be moot in the present company, and one must certainly admire its minimally syllabic pointedness and the effectiveness of an almost unrivalled speed of articulation.
"Tosser!"
Right back atcha! One would however still be plumbing the depths of good taste, and with articulative speed no better than before the receipient would be equally far back along the road. However, the extended û sound of the last syllable provides for a splendid lingering delivery as one speeds away.
"Takes one to know one!"
Too commonplace I think; impossibly clichéd, and even in jest would be intimating fault where in my surely holier-than-thou manner none existed. Through its everyday manner any desired insult is diluted beyond reasonable effect, and it borders on a delivery time that may be measured as 10 metres or more of tarmac, by which time the guilty party is already long gone, hidden by later vehicles and falling off one's immediate attentions.
My mind started working on effusion instead, incorporating half-remembered snatches of comedy sketches involving a man coming to repair a harpsichord, and an adaptation of litarary greatness that would have Jane Austen herself blushing furiously.
"Fair Sir, I fear not. I do find however that a strap-on is quite unable to deliver the same wonderful sensations with which I'm sure you yourself are so intimately acquainted."
Traffic lights notwithstanding, I would be quite tested to carry my voice 160 metres for the final words to my most expressive acquaintance. In the heat of the moment, I decided that in order to minimise further reaction time I should merely direct at him a look combining amusement and superiority, and thus the half-smirk, half-glare was created. The effectiveness of this approach is highly debatable, yet as I continued on my happy journey I detected no subsequent laughter.
Except mine.
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