I used to be a card-carrying, parka and DMs wearing student. I studied in a small town where cycling was de rigeur. So strong was the bond with residents and bicycles, that hordes of angry cyclists would mob around one of the key roundabouts to protest about town traffic. The college bike shed, for which I had a key, held many rusty relics that had been abandonned by their owners many years before I bought my first pair of combat pants.
“What’s green and takes two weeks to drink?”. Not surprisingly, we had a bar in our college, that sold green drinks. “A grant cheque” – we had them in ye olde days. After embarking on a night of relentless table football and drinking, maybe a kebab would be in order before the chore of having to get home. Home was a good few miles off – over the river and far away. Money was tight – top priorities for any available cash were obviously burgers, hair dye kits, dungarees and whatever you could use to get out of your tree. (Don’t forget that there’s nitrous oxide in Soda Stream cartridges, kids). Buying bicycles and bus tickets was low on the list of priorities.
So it would seem churlish not to give the rusty neglected bicycles the good riding that they had been missing. This involved running into the dustiest corner of the bike shed, hoiking out a grimey bike and peddling it as fast as possible away from the CCTV cameras. If the bike had tyres and brakes, it would be kept and nurtured as a new slave, and given its own padlock and chain. If it didn’t make the grade, it was entered into gladiatoral combat with a high bridge, gravity and a river. Invariably in such circumastances, the incumbant champions of this particular form of contest would team up against the new bicycle, and it would meet a watery end.
One bike that I treasured was a gold (painted) BMX. That stallion was the business for assaulting the big stone staircases around our college. My friends and I shared this opinion, as did someone else (perhaps its owner). The other unknown party cared enough about the golden mount to keep breaking the chains I was using to secure it in the bike shed, and reposessing the bike. It changed hands a few times – with my chain on, then its owners again, then mine again.
Bikes were great when you didn’t have to pay for them – once when you are a kid and you get one for your birthday (which moron put Christmas in the middle of winter), the other time was when you thieved them.