like riding a bike - (simile) Said of skill that, once learned, is never forgotten.

Raleigh racers and quiet streets

I have recently purchased a shiny new bicycle. It is a Focus Cayo 105 - a carbon framed, drop handlebar road bike. After twenty three (ish) years of various mountain bikes and hybrids (with one exception in 1992, which I will get to another time), it is has been a daunting experience to be back in the drops once more, contending with having to brake in the aero position - and these days change gear too!

I can just about remember the last time I regularly rode a "racer" with drop bars...

During the 1980's, when we lived in Hitchin, Hertfordshire and Channel 4 would show street circuit racing on Monday nights, my mates and I would organise our very own circuit races around the streets of our estate. When we weren't emulating our football heroes of that era on the park, we would be on the streets, arguing about who was Malcolm Elliot or Keith Lambert before discussing how many laps that night's race would consist of, depending on the length of the course agreed. I have just worked out the circuit we would use most frequently using Google Maps. An eight hundred metre loop around three quiet suburban roads. We would usually race furiously for five laps.

The age range of the competitors was eleven to thirteen and we had just graduated to our first “racers”. These were Raleigh, in some cases Dawes or Falcon tourers, replete with mud guards and often some kind of carrier/rack that could be employed to convey a passenger or school bag, outside of race conditions. Mine was a dark blue Raleigh tourer. It might have been called a Stratos, or something like that. It was selected from the second hand bikes outside our local bike shop as my twelfth birthday present. I had outgrown my Raleigh Grifter and my dad had grown tired of me taking his light blue Sun Solo from the garage on summer evenings to compete in our racing series, and returning it punctured or with muddy evidence of one of our cyclo-cross meets smeared and spattered all over it and clogging up the brakes and mechs. Mountain Bike fever would not properly take hold in this country for another couple of years.

Races would set off at a pace we could never maintain for the entire duration. The key to success was a combination of timing, mechanical failure and the exploitation of a rule from the racing series, employed to devious effect. Please correct me if I’m wrong here, but I seem to remember that if a competitor suffered a mechanical failure or puncture, they could rejoin on the next lap. With our un-indexed, down tube mounted shifters, it was easy to force the chain off. One would make it audibly very obvious with manic pedalling that you were unable to get the chain back on without stopping then dismount, fiddle about until your opponents had disappeared around the next corner and catch your breath. When they returned for the next lap, you could rejoin refreshed and confident for the sprint at the end of the final lap. It would be necessary to stand up for yourself vociferously, sometimes physically, if any accusations of simulation, cheating or unfair advantage were aimed at you. But every one of us could be accused of using this rule to our advantage at one point or another and boys will be boys.

 I am often very nostalgic and rose tinted in looking back at my childhood adventures. Times have changed. It is certainly true that there was much less traffic on the roads then, allowing us to mess about on our bikes more safely. But the main contributory factor in my neighbourhood was a rare and very canny piece of town planning. Our housing estate was built between a triangle of three main roads. An anonymous councilor or planner, a hero who I guess will remain anonymous, had identified that many children would be living on this estate and that the roads through these houses could be utilised as a sneaky rabbit run to beat traffic or avoid a junction. The road which would have served as a main artery for a short cut was blocked off halfway down. They built a barrier across it, meaning that residents had to drive round the main roads and join their street at one end, depending which side of the barrier they lived. Any non-residents would not be able to cheat and cut through and we were left in relative safety, organising circuit races and playing kerby.

 This weekend I am printing off some maps of some of my cycling routes around Birmingham. I reckon some strategically placed barriers with gaps wide enough for bikes is just what Birmingham is crying out for, which I will be adding with a felt tipped pen before making a suggestion to the city council. There are far too many rabbit runs in this city – narrow residential roads, often without calming measures, which are driven down too quickly. My misty water coloured memories of my old bike and the streets where I grew up has drawn me to the conclusion that this approach would force cars back onto the main roads and we could meander down the vacated residential roads on our bikes, racing with the local kids and watching out for footballs bouncing off the kerbs at head height as we go.

New and fangled

Unthreaded headsets. What are they all about then? My bars were set at a height I have decided was too high when my bike was delivered so I set about making an adjustment. Two 5mm spacers to be taken from the underside of the stem and placed above it. Unfortunately, my enthusiasm for carrying out repairs by myself has always been trumped by the fact that I am a cack handed idiot when it comes to all but the simplest tasks. I watched two videos on youtube of a couple of Americans doing this and it looked easy. Have you ever noticed the slightly bored but condescending, yet at the same time informative tone of voice Americans effect whenever they are demonstrating anything on the web? It is manner of speaking which sounds like they kind of hold you in contempt if you are unable to complete the tasks as nonchalantly as they are able. Whether it is a really technical presentation or even just an overview of how to complete a level of a computer game. Irritating. Even more so when you carry out an adjustment on a bike precisely as they have instructed and then notice everything is too loosely reassembled. There was so much play because the stem was not applying enough pressure on the remaining spacers beneath it, that the front wheel was jolting back and forth about a centimetre. Eventually, I sorted it out by pushing right down on the stem, really hard down over the front wheel while the side bolts were tightened but a timely reminder about my mechanical shortcomings has been duly acknowledged.