S T EEL YOURSELF
Norman’s ancient Roberts bike is on the heavier side, but he’d sooner lose weight from himself...
Afew months before lockdown (first edition), I was ambling along a London street when an outfitters caught my eye. The store specialised in men’s fashion from the 1980s. My 11-year-old grandson is into retro fashion and is particular about having waistcoats and matching ties – he’d have loved it.
He takes after me, because I’m into a similarly vintage flavour when it comes to bikes. I have been reliably informed that I’m writing for this magazine’s 2021 Bike of the Year issue but I’m afraid I’ve got little to add to the discourse. You will, I’m sure, find all manner of fantastic, modern carbon bikes with all the bells and whistles that will bring you immense joy over the coming years but my interest and knowledge of bikes has been largely preserved in amber since the mid-1990s.
Both of my bikes, Roberts, are of the same era, around 25 years old. They are both made from Columbus steel, which if memory serves come from an Italian maker, Colombo. I might be wrong.
It can’t have escaped your attention that since I started writing this column last autumn I’ve talked far more about cycling than I have my bike. You’ll quickly understand that I do not talk ‘bike’. It’s nothing short of a foreign language to me. Like a language, I know some swear words for when it goes wrong, but few structured sentences to get me out of bother when it does.
Idly reading a magazine the other day I learnt that steel was density-challenged. The same could also be said of me at the moment. But there’s certainly more to be shaved off the weight of the rider than the weight of the bike and is part of the reason why I continue to ride bikes from the previous century.
As far as my limited horizons are concerned, steel is fine. It’s given me many happy years and even at 25 there’s more life in them. I don’t care much about what I add to it either, even if it adds weight. So what, as long as it’s practical?
My bikes have mudguards. Attaching them is a habit ingrained from sticking to someone’s rear wheel for a few hours in the rain when on audax rides. Recently my front mudguard parted company from its holding brackets and took a dive through the small space between the forks and the front tyre. The ground and I said hello. I have tried to get a replacement plastic silver coloured mudguard to match the rear. This has been in vain and to me the front of my pride and joy looks like a chicken that has lost all its neck feathers. The search continues.
You will also never persuade me to part company with my bell – any cyclist that rides in horse country should have one. Horses are unpredictable and most horse riders welcome the warning ping from about 25 metres away. I think that riders who share the same space as walkers, whether on designated cycle pavements or on walking paths, should never be without one. I’m unable to count the number of times cyclists have suddenly and silently appeared behind my wife and I when out walking. What is the big deal? Why no bell?
I have no truck with those in favour of pocket pumps. I am immune to all arguments. In my past lies a full cemetery of bent tube valves, crooked from the wild forces involved in inflating a tyre with pumps little bigger than my hand. Now I’ve got mounts for my bike that will hold a pump the length of my arm.
Roberts stopped making bikes in 2015. Every now and again I will meet a fellow owner and we become fast friends, although they do tend to lapse into the language of ‘bike’ and ask questions about gear ratio, sprockets and crank lengths. They may as well be talking Latin. I trust the bike mechanic to get the bike to the requirements that are best for me. My interests and enjoyment come from riding it.
“‘Bike’ is like a foreign language to me - I only know a few swear words for when it all goes wrong... ”