Number of Bikes Required?
If you’re my kind of age, the chances are that you might have spent many a happy Saturday afternoon playing with computers on display in shops. I had hours of fun with this simple BASIC programme:
10 Print "This shop really sucks"
20 Goto 10
The computer screen would fill up with the words "This shop really sucks" and we’d stand there sniggering at it until a sales assistant noticed what we’d done and we got thrown out.
Anyway.
I met this guy yesterday when I was out taking Huge Dalmatian for a walk - nice ride, with a single-speed conversion, of a Bob Jackson steel frame, Brooks saddle (well worn-in) and Carradice saddle bag . We got talking, and it seems that he also lives his life by this sort of simple programming. I’ve found it works for me too:
10 Let NumberOfBikes = 0
20 Let NumberOfBikes = NumberOfBikes+1
30 Goto 20
No matter how many (or few) bikes you have, you’ll always need just one more. The logic to this cannot be faulted - if you already have a stable full of rides, you’ll always need a higher / lower capacity cargo bike, a winter bike, a summer bike, a family trips bike, etc.
If you don’t already have a bike, then you just need to take that first step and get hold of one. Make sure it’s from outside of the BSO price bracket, and you’ll enjoy the ride so much that pretty soon you’ll be itching for another…
Or, if like me, you are useless at repairing bikes you have bikes in various states of disrepair, and seem to end up justifying buying a new one as oppose to mending the old one…. At present, I have a mountain bike with a broken saddle in a shed in Cornwall, a city folding bike (and very much a BSO) with a flat tyre in the bottom of my airing cupboard. Two hybrids in storage in Sydney, Australia (nothing wrong with them, just a long long way away) and my lovely un-thievable purple Emmelle - which works and gets me round just fine. Doesn’t mean I haven’t been eyeing off a Dutch tourer with swept back handlebars though… Oh my god, I’m a bike sl*t!
PS Just how huge is Huge Dalmatian, and are there any kebab shops nearby??
[...] I had to get more information - I could almost see this coming in really handy (because after all, I don’t have enough bikes ), so I emailed right [...]