Hymn

Robbin' Hood

What fun I have on my little fold-up bicycle: scurrying about like an unrestrained hamster.  Six months of pedalling around London and I’m still alive.  It’s remarkable.  Admittedly, I’ve had a lorry pass so close that it smeared my sleeve with grime but I lived to tell the tale.  And wash my arm.

Still, in some small way, my clown’s bike is actually keeping me out of mischief.  For as dangerous as the traffic and pot-holes and wayward pedestrians are, I sometimes feel that the most risk lies in navigating the gangs of youths that litter my journey home.  But I have learnt to worry less.

Waiting on the platform at a minor London station this evening, I found myself the focal point of the local Crew.  Now normally, I am, by nature of my innate street-cred and camouflage training, indistinguishable from the average Hoodie.  And, I like to think, impossible to tell apart even from those of this dark ‘Hood.  Of course I may be wrong.  Because something drew this mob’s attention to the sweaty balding white man riding a circus toy. 

‘Yo, motherfucker, what’s this shit?’ demanded one boy dressed in a black hooded top, jeans and Nike trainers.

‘That’s some crazy shit.’ Offered another, a boy dressed in a black hooded top, jeans and Nike trainers.

‘I ain’t seen nothing like it: it’s fucking loose, man.’ Piped up a third, a boy dressed in a black hooded top, jeans and Nike trainers, almost certainly oblivious to the use of a colon in his sentence structure.

“I’m sorry.  What?” I asked before realising that it might not be the optimal course of action.

They stared at me.  I wasn’t entirely sure if it was the look of hyenas about to enjoy a KFC Bargain Bucket or lawyers meeting an accident victim.  Either way it wasn’t pleasant.  I’ve not received a look like that since that unfortunate incident at the Jewellers with the wheel brace.

Thankfully, my experience as a Hostage Negotiator kicked in. 

“Yo. Yo. Yo.” I said, blending in.

Their silence spoke volumes – I knew I was being accepted.

“It’s a fold up bicycle, homeys.”

I collapsed it in front of them.  They took a step towards me, clearly impressed.  I realised I had reduced my means of escape to what appeared to be the output of a car crusher.  The mental image of me pedalling away to safety dissolved into a vision of being stuffed into a dustbin.

‘I wants one of those, fold-up motherfuckers.  They is well cool.’

“Eh?”  I queried.

‘Yeh, man.  They is well cool.  I could do with one of those babies.’

“Evans” I said.  “You can buy one from Evans.”

‘Yeh, man, right.’

And with that he playfully punched my arm and they wandered off to smash the few remaining windows in the station.

Although it was a cool night, I realised I was sweating.  Still, only another thirty minutes to wait for my train.  I rebuilt my Brompton.  And sat on it.

Muffin Top

My cycle to the station in the mornings has become rather routine: we are such creatures of habit.  I meet the same characters, see the same events more or less every day.  There’s the dog walker on the Bridleway, the arguing siblings climbing the hill, the blackbird and the robin on the fence behind number 48, the scowling cat in the garden at number 46, the man in his underpants in Brooke Drive.  The woman in the red Fiesta tries to run me down pretty much every day and the market traders always curse as I weave through their setting up of stalls.  All of this is fine.  It’s texture.  The one sight that always depresses me is the grey faces.  Standing in line.  Queuing.  Lifelessly.  For breakfast.  At McDonalds.

I try not to look.

Finding Brompton in Hyde

There was something splendidly English about this morning’s jaunt to work. 

The first meeting of the day was at one of the grand old museums in Kensington.  So, with a bit of time and clear blue skies, I could fulfil an ambition. 

It’s something I’ve always wanted to do; imagined it to be terribly romantic: riding through Hyde Park in the sunshine.  As if I owned the place.  Or, at least lived close enough to own a place that was fabulously expensive.  Of course, if I really wanted to impress, I’d have been on horseback.  But they won’t let me bring Neddy on the train.  At least not after the incidence with that woman’s sugar lumps and the extended visit to Accident and Emergency.

Nevertheless, after negotiating various subways and some of the Upper Reaches of Hell just to avoid the traffic at Marble Arch, I emerged onto the surreal idyll of a speaker-less Speakers’ Corner.  But I was not alone.  I joined a legion of riders of fold-up bicycles.  It felt like the Rio carnival, albeit without the music, the dancers and the costumes.  Instead of those gaudy elements, this parade consisted cyclists, often of indeterminate gender, sporting florescent jackets and perched on circus-style miniature bikes all puffing cheerfully through the cold.  And I was one of them.

I like to think that I’m always pushing the boundaries of what’s considered cool.

Morning Routine

The world takes on a slightly different complexion when seen from the seat of folding bicycle.  Not since that unsightly bout of facial boils have I attracted so much attention.  Barely a day goes by without some stranger commenting on the size of my contraption. In the saddle too, things appear a little odd.

Riding through the frosty dawns of late, a kind of pattern has emerged.  And it mainly occurs down the urban bridleway that crosses one of the less salubrious and more exciting estates of my town. 

Every morning for the last couple of weeks I’ve witnessed exactly the same sequence of events: 

I ride past a man walking his mangy old dog.  The dog wears a flashing light on its jacket but never hears me coming.  It’s oblivious to my bell and hallooing.  The man pulls the pup aside and nods.

Five seconds later, and it’s always five seconds regardless of how fast I’m travelling, I startle a blackbird by a gnarled oak tree.  It squawks at me, disgruntled and flaps to the nearby fence.  Of course I cannot be sure but I think it’s the same one everyday. 

It appears connected to the occupants of Number 26 Brooke Rise because as soon as the bird’s airborne, an upstairs light flickers on.  Originally I thought it might an external security light trigged by movement but it’s definitely a bedroom lamp - when I watch longer, a bare-chested man in spotty boxer shorts crosses the gap in the curtains.  He’s usually scratching.

Then the mangy dog barks.

But today something unusual happened.

The dog-walking man spoke.  And it’s a woman.  Buried beneath the hat, the scarf, the gloves and duffle coat is a woman.  She told me the dog is deaf.

Then the blackbird turned into a robin. 

Maybe because it’s nearly Christmas.

Brompton

Enough.  Enough.  Enough of these infernal local trains for which timetables are an inconvenience for others to follow.  Already during my first eight weeks on the job I have arrived late more times than I can remember because my last connecting train has had something more important to do than follow the silly schedule.  I have had enough. 

There were two options: enjoy a Falling Down moment like Michael Douglas and his personal arsenal or find an alternative.  I couldn’t find my Uzi.  Something else will have to do.

I have bought a new bicycle.  Not an ordinary bicycle, you understand.  Oh no.  A Brompton.  A folding bicycle.  You may have seen them.  Strangely wonderful contraptions that look like a baby giraffe with wheels the size of pennies.  And the collapse smaller than a postage stamp.  Witchcraft, I tell you.

In the past of course, these odd machines have been the reserve of middle-aged men, in tweed jackets and jeans, trying to cling to the vestiges of a simpler time and therefore looking dangerously eccentric as they weave in and out of either gridlocked or racing traffic.

Naturally, I’ll change all of that, being the epitome of cool that I am.  Today, just seventy-two hours into my membership of the Cycling-in-Town-so-Life-Expectancy-is-a-Week-at-Best club, I rode to a nearby pub for lunch with a friend.  I could have walked fifteen minutes to the Tube, waited, caught the tube for two stops and had a ten minute stroll the other end.  On my marvellous, mechanical bicycle - just five minutes.  And on arrival, fold it up and carry it in, little more cumbersome than a 12kg paperback.

Oh! the joy of it.  It was as much as I could do not to whoop with delight peddling back to the office, jacket tails flapping elegantly in the wind, weaving in and out of the traffic, reminiscing about childhood jaunts.  Oh, if only I’d had my pipe to hand.