cookie’s Random Jottings
cookie’s Random Jottings
Defining moments – not a lexicographer’s whim, but a recurring topic in these musings. Regular readers will know this, and they’ll also know that I’ve rekindled my love of cycling in the last couple of years. It’s in my blood – my parents met at a cycling club. I’ve just returned from Paris having been to see the final stage of the Tour de France, and I’m writing this on the day thousands of poor souls have taken to the roads of London and Surrey to cycle 100 miles in appallingly wet conditions.
I’ve realised that there were a couple of vélo-related defining moments in my youth that, on reflection, really shaped me.
My beautiful old Holdsworth
The first of these tales concerns the time when my grandfather decided that I should do away with the stabilisers on my first little bike. Ever strong-willed, I seem to remember protesting quite forcefully about this concept – I was just fine as I was thank you very much. What made it worse was that he removed the precious aids-to-upright-equilibrium on a Wednesday and didn’t make any attempt to teach me to ride until the following Saturday, a full three days later! I was really indignant about this and, even at that tender age, felt like my wings had been clipped. It’s funny, because my cycling sorties up to that point had consisted of little more than wobbling up and down the pavement outside the house.
On the Saturday he took me up to Palewell Park in Sheen, and spent the afternoon trotting around behind my bike holding the back of the saddle as he pushed me along. To me, this was great fun – I was actually going faster than ever before for nil effort. Eventually I started to pedal in pursuit of even more of this eye-watering speed, and hurtled across the grass giggling with glee, with my grandfather wheezing along in my wake. I think we had to stop a few times so he could do what working-class men always seem to do when they’re fighting for breath – smoke a fag.
On resumption, the old boy (who was probably not much older than I am now) obviously decided this was shit-or-bust time and must have run as fast as he could and given me an almighty shove. I was pedalling like crazy and, realising that we’d gone much further than before, I turned to give my grandad an approving grin… and there he wasn’t! I was riding a two-wheeler! I felt the way I imagine a fledgling bird must feel when it flies for the first time. The feeling of freedom was almost indescribable and even now, decades later, that feeling returns with the first few pedal revolutions of every bike ride.
The year must have been around 1973. I went into the local toy shop – which specialised in bikes and model railways – and saw for the first time my companion of the next few years. I was about ten years old at the time, and my companion-to-be was a Raleigh Olympus – the first kids’ sports bike I ever saw. I remember it as if it were yesterday; it had five derailleur gears (unheard of on a child’s bike at the time), and a Brooks saddle. Of course, I instantly fell in love with it. It was so different from the Raleigh Chopper, which was the must-have bike for kids my age at the time, and its price tag said £33.50.
Love at first sight – Raleigh Olympus
I went home and told my dad about it. In fact, I probably talked of little else for days, and pointed out how I’d outgrown the rusting hand-me-down Dawes I had been given a few years earlier. Eventually my dad relented and the following week we went back to the shop to put a deposit on the bike.
Now, as I remember, this wasn’t hire purchase or any kind of credit; no, it seemed you paid what you could, when you could, until you’d paid the full amount. Only then were the goods released. Every Saturday my dad would give me “ten bob to pay off the bike” and, having handed over the 50p, I’d have to suffer the agony of gazing at the gleaming object of my affections with the payment card in my grubby mitt telling me I’d probably have grown out of it by the time we’d finished paying.
Now this is where the defining moment comes in. I think that, having to walk past that bike for weeks on end without being able to enjoy the instant gratification that modern-day commerce allows, made me respect and enjoy it all the more when I finally awoke on my birthday to find the bike in my room. My dad had gone and paid off the balance. That bike and I were inseparable for the next few years and, again, I got an immense feeling of freedom and independence whenever I rode it. I could go as far as the food in my belly would allow, although I do remember bonking (running out of fuel) quite spectacularly once. After that, my mother insisted I carry a pack of glucose tablets in my saddlebag as a get-you-home measure.
In hindsight, it was a bit like the liberating experience of getting your first car and realising that the world is your lobster. Eventually, as I reached my mid-teens, I customised the bike somewhat as this 1970s photo reveals.
Cookie astride the Olympus circa 1977
As for my cycling renaissance, I’m managing to cycle a few hundred miles a month in the summer and am enjoying what is probably the best physical shape I’ve been in since leaving school. Best of all, I’m still getting that incredible feeling of freedom. I’m also on the verge of joining the local cycling club, who seem a friendly and welcoming bunch.
Retro gear for riding my old Holdsworth
If you were wondering, the picture at the head of this piece is of my first grazed knee in a lot of years. I sustained this (horrific!) injury falling off my brand-new bike last year. I’d like to say my pride was hurt more than my body, but what this pic doesn’t show was that I bore the brunt of the tumble by falling on the very tip of my left thumb – ouch! In my defence though, it was on the same corner that did for Fabian Cancellara in the 2012 Olympic road race.
And finally... I never knew this, but it would appear that baseball was invented by the ancient Romans if this statue in Paris’ Jardin des Tuileries is to be believed.
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‘Til the next time…
La Vie en Vélo
Sunday, 10 August 2014