Hutch versus Trump

Even in a world where bare-faced liars hold the highest offices of state, the Doc’s pal Bernard is unrivalled in the art of fibbing

You probably don’t remember the Tour de Trump. It was a bicycle race that ran in 1989 and 1990 on the Eastern Seaboard of the US and was sponsored by none other than Donald Trump. He promised it would be bigger than the Tour de France. It wasn’t.

All the same, I have come to nurse a suspicion that this was not Trump’s only connection with our world. I think he has modelled much of his approach to truth and honesty on none other than my friend Bernard.

This realisation came to me last week. We were out for a ride together. It was one of those cold, still days of winter when the riding is often really very pleasant — peaceful, with few cars, and the sort of visibility that lets a Cambridgeshire rider look out from the top of one of our cloudbothering hills and see for literally a mile or two. The only thing disturbing our peace was a creaking noise from Bernard’s bike. It was a remarkably loud creaking noise — if Nelson had heard it coming from HMS Victory he would have decided Napoleon could have Trafalgar if he wanted it, and scurried home before the ship fell apart beneath him.

“Bit of a din you’ve got going on there,” I said.

“What?” he said. “I can’t hear anything.” “That creaking! I can barely hear your mudguards rattling above the racket.”

“Nope, no creaking from my bike. None. Maybe it’s yours?”

It wasn’t.

It’s not as if Bernard doesn’t know a creaky bike when he hears one. Nor that he doesn’t know the consequences. One of the things about cycling that has changed in my years of riding is that bikes have got quieter. Better designed components have reduced the number of potential squeaks