Rob Ainsley knows what he wants for his 60th
Bus pass for my 60th? Nope, just give me a new bike, says Rob Ainsley...
“Bikes are lighter, faster, more sophisticated, better-looking... If only the same applied to me”
When I was 10, I dreamed about winning the Premium Bonds and buying a new bike.
Ambitions changed as I grew up. I wanted to be rich and famous instead. But reality intervened and I steadily dialled things back. I just wanted to be rich. Then I just wanted to be comfortable. Then I just wanted a job. This month I turn 60. Now I dream about winning the Premium Bonds and buying a new bike.
Bikes have been part of my life almost every day for over half a century, and have figured in most of my best life experiences. Overall, they’ve got lighter, faster, more sophisticated, better-looking and worth more. If only the same applied to me.
My first non-kiddy bike was a blue Raleigh, circa 1968. I was a utility cyclist from day one. I rode to the ice-cream van to buy cigarettes for my parents. Don’t worry, it was done responsibly: they wrote a note for me to show the ice-cream man, and only bought me cinnamon cigarettes.
I commuted to school on my Vindec. Even then, you had to mind out for other road users who thought the streets belonged to them. Boys playing football, in other words.
Through the 1970s I had a succession of town bikes, typically blagged for £20 in a house clearance job-lot with boxes of old tools. Most were identical Raleigh Wayfarers (Sturmey Archer three-speed, dark blue frame, black saddlebag). They don’t make ’em like they used to. Thank goodness.
My first proper bike, whose saddlebag usually carried an OS map and a pork pie, was in 1979: Raleigh Clubman, Reynolds 531, metallic green, £120. At the time, that bought about 325 pints of lager in a pub; they would cost you £1200 today. It was the most perfect bike I’d ever had. Brooks saddle, too. I wish I’d kept it, because it might be worn in by now.
Later, I lived in Japan and had some domestic-brand town bikes to get around. I don’t know how many, because we’d never lock them. We just leant them up in piles against a wall. So many bikes looked similar that I must have often inadvertently taken someone else’s.
In 1996 I bought a second-hand Raleigh Record Ace, fitted for touring with rack and triple chainset, for £200 from a shop in Bristol (£430 now, by the pints rule). I rode to Athens, did the End to End and myriad other tours. It was the most perfect bike I’d had. Sadly, when parked one evening it got squashed by a careless lorry. Taking the mangled remains to the dump felt like taking a family pet to be put down.
In London in 2005 an in-law had just bought her boyfriend a Specialized Crossroads for his birthday, but before she could give it to him, he broke off the relationship. Bad karma: so rather than sell it, she gave it to me. (My Specialized Hard Rock, adapted as a trekking/utility bike, had just been stolen.) Everyone got something out of it: I got a town bike, she got revenge, he got to walk home.
In 2010 I bought yet another metallic green Raleigh: a Royal tourer, for £395 (£520 today on the lager scale). I did several international End to Ends on it and countless big trips. At the time, it felt like the most perfect bike I’d ever had. A real workhorse.
Last year, I acquired a used Dahon Speed TR folding tourer: sturdy enough to carry full expedition kit, comfy all day, 24 gears for the hills, but compacting small enough to go free on Eurostar.
But my favourite bike came in 2015, built to my spec: a Spa Cycles Steel Tourer. Roughly 310 pints of lager got me V-brakes with extra levers, down-tube shifters, high short-drop bars and ultra-low gears (Deore, 46-34-24 / 11-34). A joy to ride, handles perfectly loaded and my companion on untold journeys since, home and abroad. The best, comfiest, most perfect bike I’ll ever have.
Until, of course, I win the Premium Bonds.