A Love Letter to an Old Friend
My first was a matte orange girl’s bike with a low swirled crossbar, metal fenders and small cranks that you could pedal like mad around the neighbourhood at lightening speed. One day those metal fenders got stuck in the front tyre and I went over the handlebars and broke my front tooth in half as my mother looked on in horror from the kitchen window.
My second was a sparkly orange Rampar BMX with black knobbly tyres that I spent my youth jumping off dirt ramps in the local woods on. When the Vans checked shoes craze swept through America in the 80’s I got matching black and white checkered handlebar and crossbar pads for it and thought I was the bee’s knees.
Next was one of the first ever mountain bikes on the market, a steel framed brown Schwinn that weighed as much as a Volkswagen Beetle. I dragged my tent in a trailer behind it for a week around the San Juan Islands in Washington State on a cycling summer camp in my mid teens. I saw my first boob on that trip, although admittedly that was due to a wardrobe malfunction rather than an adolescent rite of passage.
For my 21st birthday I got a lovely green Bridgestone which I mounted strange handlebar extensions to. It ended up looking vaguely like a bull. I’d rarely use the handlebars though and would instead ride it all the way home from work no handed. That bull carried me to my first bars and to the first houses I frequented that didn’t have parents in them.
When I got to Ireland in 1999, I got a 200 quid, no frills blue Dawes, stuck slicks on it and made a living off it for my first couple of years here. That small investment would pay for itself over and over again and kept me in pints at a point in my life when my thirst was particularly strong.
Then it was a silver Specialised with red highlights that I put together piece by piece over about 8 months with a mate in his sitting room. I loved that bike, but the frame snapped on it going off a kerb on Leeson street. That broke my heart.
Next it was a rainbow coloured Sentessi which weighed about as much as a loaf of bread and looked like the kind of bike a child would draw with a new set of fancy coloured markers. I got it second hand and always worried it had been previously stolen before coming into my possession.
The last bike I couriered on was a lovely small framed silver Kona with a seat post that looked humorously long. It was solid and reliable, but it didn’t have much excitement to it. It was also the first bike that I stuck a child seat on, which was a definite change in tone.
And then the government started the Bike to Work scheme to get more people out of their cars. The scheme meant that you could get a bike for just over half price through tax breaks with your employer. The Kona needed a lot of work at that point and a fairly substantial investment to return it to true roadworthiness, so it would have been silly to put that money into anything other than a brand new bike.
I’d bought the Kona off a guy named Cliff. He had worked in most of the shops in town and once you had an in with him, you were fairly set. He’d always look after couriers so it meant that my bike would be seen to first for repairs and there would always be a bit of a mate’s rate on any big purchase.
I looked at his shop’s website and saw a bike that really caught my eye. I was instantly intrigued by what a strange looking vehicle it was. It had a tall, brilliant white frame and large jet black wheels and handle bars. It wasn’t a particularly fast looking bike and it didn’t look particularly light, but I instantly fell in love with it. When I got to the shop, I asked to see it as soon as Cliff and I were done shaking hands
In person it looked robust and simple. It had an eight speed internal hub, so rather than the traditional combination of levers to move the chain back and forth around a large number of cogs and wheels, it had one continuous chain than went around in a graceful oval with no fuss. I was in love and after doing a bit of frantic research to make sure that the crazy hub wasn’t a mistake, paid for it and asked Cliff to stick on large black full length metal mudguards.
The next day I picked it up and went straight home to customise it. Whenever I buy a bike in Dublin, the first thing I do is cover all of the branding with black electrical tape. My bikes haven’t had any words on them for two decades. It’s mainly so that no one knows how good a bike it is when they see it locked somewhere, so they don’t want to rob it. But I also love the aesthetic of the big strips of blocked out writing. My bikes always look like mine, even from a distance.
The wife and kids hated the look of it. They were mortified for me. They all thought it looked like an old lady bike and were at pains to make sure I knew that. I think it was the first thing my daughter teased me about. She’s now a teenager and is embarrassed by everything I touch. But back then she was still embarrassed for me, not by me.
That bike taped up for the first time in the back garden was perfect. I loved every inch of it. In my eyes it looked like a big chunky two tone vintage police bike. It was all either black or white and had clean, straight lines.
Since that night I have ridden that bike for at least an hour a day (often much more), for at least 48 weeks of the year, for 11 years straight and I have always loved it. It has been as constant as anything in my life. It just became part of the family.
I stuck my youngest on it for a while before he started on his balance bike.
Then it became part of the pack when we all cycled off to our different schools in the morning.
I have always enjoyed riding it and we have spent hours and hours battling the elements together. I’ve ridden it through every type of weather imaginable, from shorts and no shirt to full rain gear with waterproof socks. I’ve ducked down, level with the handlebars to try to hide from a fierce headwind. I’ve had a tail wind so strong that it felt like it had an engine and the throttle was open. I’ve even angled that bike to 45 degrees to sit on the wind so I don’t get blown off it on a squally Dublin side wind.
In that time and on that bike I’ve heard every sound imaginable as well. I’ve heard the unwelcome slosh of wet leaves beneath the tyres more often than I’ve heard the soft snap of dry summer grass. I’ve heard the ominous crunch of ice and snow and felt the terror in those notes. I’ve heard the sharp expletives of fights in town and the garbled shouts of angry horns in traffic. I’ve heard the cacophony of seagull squawks and surf along the coast at dawn and the symphony of bird song at dusk.
I’ve been honked at, sworn at, smiled at and winked at. I’ve also seen my fair share of combinations of fingers and thumbs. I’ve been the protagonist in a few people’s road stories and the antagonist in others. And I’ve seen and heard it all while looking at those handlebars and that front wheel. An image I’ve seen so often that I could describe every nick and dent and wobble down to the millimetre.
When I have battled that last hill steep home and the smaller neigbourhood inclines after it, I have repeatedly reflected on my connection with that bike. And every time I navigate it up the last laneway and to the spot where I have to squeeze between the two cars that are always parked a bit too close to each other, I always have to be thankful for my mastery of that machine. I have never brushed either car, no matter the time of day or the amount of craic that I have had before making my way home.
And then the pandemic hit and all of that noise went quiet. All of that weather ceased to have meaning. All of those trips up that hill and through that gap became unnecessary. Suddenly, for the first time in my adult life I didn’t have to cycle every day and I watched sadly as the callouses on my hands from holding onto the handlebars disappeared for the first time in 20 years.
But as the world was turned upside down I ached for some normality and there was nothing more normal than that bike. So I started cycling every afternoon during the first lockdown out to my 2km limit and around it’s edges and back. That calmed me immensely at a time when I was prone to panic.
During the terrifying pre-vaccine Christmas surge of 20/21, that bike helped me sneak an extra 2km beyond my five and brought me to safety. For three months, I cycled out for a swim at the slip in Clontarf or the Bull Wall everyday of the week. That routine kept me sane and the physical barrier of 100 yards of ice cold water from absolutely everyone else in the whole world made me feel a safety from the virus that nothing else could.
The repetition was a tonic. The same view of those handlebars on those familiar roads and paths day after day kept me together. The normality was essential. Thankfully, the vaccine rollout eventually came and I was able to return to work and its own normality.
But after a good summer and a lovely Autumn in 2021, Winter 2022 hit hard. We had wind and rain for days and days and the bike started to really show its age. I started to notice the dark liver spots of ground-in dirt on the old white frame. The once taught chain was sagging deeply like the skin on an old lady’s wrist. The cranks were wheezing a loud uneven cough with every stroke. I tried treating it with oil, but it didn’t want to hold it anymore. The bike was tired. It broke my heart.
As much as I hated to admit it, it was time for the bike to retire. I struggled with the idea for ages, even after the chain became so loose that I didn’t dare stand on the pedals for fear of being thrown. I hated the idea of giving it up just because it had gotten old. Even though I have never given any vehicles names and I never have referred to my bike as a he or a she, it still felt vaguely disloyal to even think of giving up on it because it was tired. It had been a companion for a very long time.
I’ve thought about holding on to it every day for the last month as it has loudly made its way up the big hill on the way home. Everything creaking and feeling looser and more raw by the day. And then one day I had to cycle it to work and then home to take my son to a doctor’s appointment and then back to work and then back home. That night I cycled to band practice and on the way home it became clear that this bike was no longer up to the task.
So last week I bought a new bike. I did loads of research. Called in a few favours from local bike shops and finally found what I hope is a worthy replacement. It has the same crazy hub and the same mudguards and the same chunky bit of practicality. And it’s home and taped up and wordless and is already in use. It doesn’t excite me yet as much as the old one did yet, but if it’s a new chapter, it’s quite a good start.
Thankfully when I picked it up, I was able to drop off my old bike to have all the work it needed done on it. I couldn’t leave it the way it was. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us. It will now be my pub and gig bike. The one I take out when I’m not looking for the day to day. I look forward to starting a new chapter on a new bike, but before I do that, I have to stop and give thanks to an old friend. An old friend who I have many, many fond memories of. An old friend that has been there every step of the way for more years than I would care to admit. An old friend whose company I will truly miss.
