Old Bikes Around Cullercoats

Old bikes are good bikes. Not the fastest, quickest, best handling machines, but still good bikes. They feel like old friends, and like old friends, they’re just so much easier and comfortable to get along with.

Take this one, that we saw in Cullercoats on Friday evening:

When this beauty came past us, I just had to beg the rider to stop so I could take a photo. Turns out that this is a bike from the ’20s that her boyfriend bought and refurbished for her birthday. My advice was that this was obviously a boyfriend who knew how to express true love, and he sounds like he’s worth keeping . . .

The next day in Tynemouth, we saw this tethered to the railings:

Now, this looks like an old bike . . . but I’m not so sure. The frame looks like butt-welded steel (am I getting too geeky here?), those cranks are alloy, and there’s just something that doesn’t quite look old to me. Can’t quite put my finger on it, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a nice ride. Anyway, I took a picture of the head badge - anyone recognise this as old or new?

Then a little later, to prove that a) summer his here, and b) cycle chic has crossed the North Sea, we saw this:

It’s Sunday morning now, so I’m off with my camera to see if I can find more evidence of this . . .

Filed under: 'A'-List Blogs, Bike Culture, Cullercoats, Everyday People, Photographs, Tynemouth