Sometimes I lose the will to live...

Last Sunday we broke with tradition and rode to Tatsfield village instead of Westerham. In the old days, of course, riding to the village would have meant sitting in the cold bus shelter drinking tea from a flask and then riding home again, but now that we're leaving our respective houses later, we get there in time for the opening of Sheree's Tea Room. Last Sunday I was there first and secured a seat by the window. It was all very festive and cosy. I ordered a pot of tea and (foolishly) a millionaire's shortbread. And then Andy arrived. I could have sat there for the whole morning if the truth be known, but as the clock edged around to 1000hrs I knew it was time to head home. Andy and I parted company at The Ridge and I rode the 269, getting home around 1100hrs.

Cosy and festive window at Sheree's Tearooms last Sunday...

Talk about riding five miles daily went out of the window as the new working week began. When I reached home on Monday night I was in no mood to get on the bike and it was the same for Tuesday and Wednesday. I did manage a Washpond Weeble on Thursday and I might well try to get one in today (Friday) but it's looking increasingly unlikely. 

Fake cakes at Sheree's Tearooms...

The weather is getting bad (or so say the TV weather people). If it does get colder then the balaclava will come out, and the scarf. Yesterday (Thursday) I rode the Weeble wearing a heavy jumper and my Parka. It was a good ride. Apparently today (Friday) offers "a really chilly start", not what I wanted to hear, but then I'm not planning on going out this morning. I have the day off so I'll go later on. Andy's not riding on Sunday so I'll have to motivate myself, which isn't a problem. I've been thinking about a ride to Redhill to have breakfast in the Pop Inn, let's see.

I'm beginning to wonder why I left it until later to hit the road. It's raining now and doesn't look as if it'll stop any time soon, so today might be called off. I'm beginning to lose track of my rides. Yesterday was a 12.38-mile ride starting at 1324hrs and ending 73 minutes later. Prior to that I had covered 16.26 miles to and from Tatsfield village on Sunday (on the road for 93 minutes in total) and then, the previous day, I did a longer ride into Westerham via Beddlestead Lane and back up Hesiers Hill (24.26 miles in two hours and 35 minutes). I did a Lunchtime Weeble (12.37 miles) on Friday 19 November and then it was the ride I mentioned in my last post when I gave up queuing and simply rode home from Westerham Costa without my regulation large English breakfast tea. In other words my mileage is seriously slacking.

Losing the will to live

I'm actually finding it difficult not to lose to will to live at the moment. This is largely due to work-related woes, and I feel a little on the edge as a result and constantly thinking how pointless everything appears to be at present. It's all work, work, work and no play. And at night I am reluctant to go to bed because I don't particularly like sleeping any more, ever since that inner ear infection back in October 2017 (28th), the day I decided to give up drinking. I've kept that up, which I'm pleased about, but the end result of the infection is that I cannot sleep on my right hand side, or rather I don't want to in case it all starts up again. Add to that a constantly blocked up ear, which I will get seen to shortly, and the whole idea of resting has become a nightmare. There's nothing worse than not being able to hear what's going on at night. I literally can't wait to wake up and as soon as I do I'm out of bed and downstairs eating breakfast if the clock reads 0500hrs or later. Anything before that and I have to grin and bear it, the only one awake, staring at the ceiling, fretting about something or someone until the hour is respectable enough for me to rise from bed and head downstairs for breakfast. 

Last Sunday's at Sheree's Tearooms

My only true pleasure at the moment comes from visiting a cosy coffee shop with a decent book and my lap top, like I did a few weeks back at a London branch of Caffe Nero. You simply can't beat it. 

To try and stop the edgy feelings and the stress I also look forward to just sitting in front of the television watching something decent (if I can find something). Normally nothing good is broadcast until 2100hrs and at the moment I'm watching the ultimate rubbish in the shape of I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here! which is absolute craperama, and even more so now that Richard Madeley has been removed from camp after being struck down by illness, caused, I believe, by diving head first into a load of rotten vegetables and fish guts, aged 65. They're back in the Welsh castle again this year due to COVID and now, of course, there's talk of another variant (Omicron) emanating from South Africa that can bypass all vaccines. I've been double-jabbed and I'm awaiting the booster, which I don't particularly want. 

Television

Getting back to what I like watching on television to soothe my edgy feelings, stuff like long-running crime dramas (Shetland) or programmes presented by Ben Fogle or even watching Shappi Korsandi (an Iranian comedian) walking alone through the countryside, something that takes me away from everything. Sadly, reality gatecrashes the party at 2200hrs when Huw Edwards appears, sombre look on face, to deliver a whole bunch of bad news to the country, normally something that involves us having to watch pictures of that prat of a Prime Minister Boris Johnson or Priti Patel leaving buildings or giving speeches or addressing the House. At this moment I channel hop, but rarely find anything worth watching, and soon I start to consider the awful reality of the situation: I've got to start thinking about locking up the house and heading upstairs to bed. Perhaps I should just sleep in a different part of the house to mix things up a bit. I keep thinking about bedding down in the conservatory in a sleeping bag for some reason, surrounding myself with pillows. That would make waking up in the middle of the night a bit more exciting. I could lie there with my radio for company, listening, perhaps, to BBC Radio Three or LBC, although the latter would probably make matters worse so let's stick with classical music. I've got a lot on my mind at present and I just wish I could find a desolate cottage on a windswept beach in Shetland or Orkney or the Isle of Harris where I could simply stare at the sea for a few days, that's what I need more than anything else.

Blood pressure

Then, to make matters worse, the doctor sends me some kind of document to download on my iphone (which proves impossible) so that I can send him a blood pressure reading. My blood pressure has always been 'borderline high' meaning not crazy or out of control but worth monitoring. So I have a monitor, which I think causes more stress than anything else. What normally happens is this: I visit the doctor for whatever reason and he takes my blood pressure, it's high, it always is when it's first taken, they call it 'white coat syndrome', and it won't come down a great deal if he presses the button on his machine a few moments later. He asks me to go away and do my own tests, which I do, and invariably the readings are much lower and it's all forgotten about. As a stressful day at work drew to a close last week the message came through and I somehow managed to send him a reading (152/89 - or something of that ilk). There was a note saying that when you first take a reading it will be high so I didn't send him the first two or three, which, according to the document, meant I needed to get myself off to A&E immediately (in itself stress-inducing). And so, the ball was in motion once again. On top of work and not being able to hear properly because my ears are blocked (and don't appear to be unblocking any time soon) all I need is to start fretting about blood pressure. But it's worse this time. My pulse, which, for years has been a constant 60, has dipped to 59, 55, 53, 51, even 50. Naturally, I make matters worse for myself by checking it out on the Internet. Brachycardia. This might be something to do with the amount of cycling I've been doing over the past 18 months, I don't know, but there it is. Andy says he gets it too and he's thought about visiting the doc, but hasn't yet. At around midnight I call a Bupa nurse (who, of course, is absolutely no help whatsover). I thought about dialling 111, but that would have been a mistake, they'd insist I wend my way to casualty and I would have been there all night... and nothing would have been resolved.

Tudor Rose Tearooms today

I have an appointment with the doc next Friday at 1000hrs and I'm already plotting (working on ways I can reduce my BP). Daily cycling is one thing, although this is also to stop me fretting at night times when I hit the sack and it was something Andy suggested when we met on Saturday (yesterday) at Sheree's Tearooms in Tatsfield Village. "Just a local five-miler, nothing more, don't attempt to start cycling to work as that will cause more stress when you fail to get it together, just five miles, nothing more, nothing less". So I'm going to do it. Incidentally, I weakened and ordered a slice of cake. See, there I go, fretting again.

Right now I'm just a ball of stress. I simply can't relax. I'm always thinking about work or I'm feeling wary about something and it all starts from the moment I open my eyes. Consciousness reminds me about the BP situation, about work and anything else that might cause anxiety, down to little things like "can you put X or Y in the loft?" or "should we put the electric fire back in the garage?" And if I'm sitting down, reading a paper or watching the TV I'm thinking "I wonder if my BP is dangerously high?" It's a continuing onslaught of worry and with the latter it's because I don't want to take blood pressure tablets, I don't want to be one of those people 'on medication'. Last night I had the monitor on all night and most of the readings were borderline high and some very high, but I managed to get one or two below the 140 marker, but nowhere near the optimum reading. I find myself getting conspiratorial about it: the docs just want to make money by getting me to take out a life-long prescription, that's all this is about. Apparently they get paid for every prescription they issue, no wonder there's a load of top-of-the-range Audi sedans in the surgery car park. I view doctors with suspicion like I do almost everybody these days. Very few people have my best interests at heart. And what really annoys me about the BP thing is this: I don't drink, I take regular exercise, I eat relatively well, I make a point of walking to Purley station every morning (well, most mornings) to keep up my steps. My only vice is the odd bit of cake, although I do need to lose about a stone in weight, and that's why I'm going to bust a gut to do that daily 5-miler during the week.

Sunday's ride to Westerham

It's Sunday morning and the sun is shining, but it's not warm outside. Far from it! Time to hit the road and get some exercise, in the shape of a 22 miles plus ride to and from Westerham. I'll probably have a large English Breakfast tea when I get there and then ride home again. The weather was bright and sunny and cold as I headed off in my Parka, heavy jumper, beany hat under helmet, and gloves. I rode the slow way along Beddlestead Lane and then down Clarks Lane, a left on to Pilgrims, turning right at the Velobarn and then riding up the hill to the Costa. There was quite a few cyclists in there and a long queue so, reluctantly, I moved along the green a little to the Tudor Rose Tearooms where I enjoyed a pot of tea and a rock cake, which was absolutely perfect. For a short while I was chilled out, deep in thought, sipping tea and munching on that rock cake. Wonderful. But soon the journey home beckoned and I found myself standing on the green, buttoning up the Parka, putting on the crash helmet and gloves, pressing 'resume' on Strava and then heading off, retracing the inward route. I decided to ride through Woldingham and up Slines Oak Road and then made my way along the Limpsfield Road towards home. 

Thoughts on this and that...

It's hard trying to get back into the swing of cycling, especially now that the weather is closing in. We're in November, heading towards the middle of the month, but the weather seems pretty mild. Last Saturday I rode to Westerham and sat outside munching on a billionaire's shortbread. Yes, you heard me, a billionaire's shortbread. It was fantastic, so good that I didn't want it to end, but I started to realise that I'd been falling back into my old ways: no exercise for a start (or not much) and then the food. The snacks. The white chocolate cookie, the chocolate brioche rolls, the Wispa Gold, the stale cinnamon brioche bun from Costa the week before last and that's just the sweet stuff. I bought some ham as I thought I'd be making my own sandwiches for work, but in the end I couldn't face the ordeal of eating a sweaty homemade sandwich when I could simply walk to the caff and enjoy something a little more substantial. But I digress, the billionaire's shortbread: it was worth every penny and even now, five days later, I'm still thinking about it. During the week I raved about it to colleagues, under the mistaken impression that only I knew what a billionaire's shortbread was. I was mistaken, which made me wonder why I hadn't enjoyed one before. A few days prior to my Saturday ride to Westerham (I think it was Wednesday) there was trouble on the trains. Somebody had jumped in front of a train close to East Croydon station. The emergency services were dealing with it. For me it meant 'no trains'. I wandered away from the station in the dark and made my way to the Costa Coffee opposite the bank for a large English breakfast tea and a millionaire's shortbread. Fortunately, I had a decent book on the go: Dave Grohl's excellent memoir, which I have since finished. I sat in the Costa reading it and then moseyed on back to the station and jumped on a train. The problem had been sorted out.

Night sets in early

It starts to get dark around 4.30pm. I started thinking about riding the bike into work and while the morning ride would be fine, for a while at least, the return journey would be a race against time. It takes around one hour and 15 minutes to ride to work and roughly the same going the other way, so I'd be home around 5.15 and would probably be riding in the dark for roughly half of the ride. I can't say the idea appealed to me and I don't remember doing much in the way of night riding last year, apart from the odd Norfolk Nobbler, talking of which, I did one today, a 7.30-mile ride. It's always a bit of a work-out riding the Nobbler, thanks to the hills, but I always feel good when I get home. I went out around 1345hrs and the ride was around 40 minutes in duration. A good way of bumping up the weekly mileage is to ride short distances, like the Nobbler, and while fairly easy on a Thursday and Friday (when I'm working from home) it's a little more difficult on a work day. Would I be motivated enough to ride at 0600hrs before eating any breakfast? Well, I wouldn't get any time for my Alpen and fruit as when I get home it'll be time for walking to the station to catch my morning train. I should really stick to Washpond Weebles on Thursday and Friday lunch time, but today's exercise was to determine the mileage of a Norfolk Nobbler with a view to riding one every day. Big thoughts! But I know only too well that when I wake up in the morning the last thing I want to do is get on the bike without drinking tea, munching toast and eating my Alpen and fresh fruits. It's just not going to happen. Actually, I really must get my act together; what with the aforementioned chocolate bars, cookies and billionaire's shortbreads, I must seriously slap myself into shape. For most of October I avoided the cakes and while I've only just started to weaken, I must stop it. That stale cinnamon brioche bun from Westerham Costa last week put me off, making me wonder at the time why I even bothered. Perhaps I should have taken it back.

More mid-week Washpond Weebles are needed

It's Friday and if there's any justice in the world I should be looking at a Washpond Weeble at lunch time. Right now, as I write this, it's breakfast time and today I admit I went over the top: in addition to my bowl of Alpen and porridge oats topped with blueberries, grapes, raspberries and sliced banana, I enjoyed two slices of toast with honey AND a couple of fried eggs on two pieces of toast. I'm thinking about another cup of tea as I write this.

Rain stops play

Friday brought rain and in the end I didn't go out so it all rested on Saturday, but instead of my usual ride to Westerham, I rode a 9.72-mile 'special edition' Norfolk Nobbler, a local ride extraordinaire (basically three loops of the Norfolk Avenue/Arundel Avenue/Ridgeway route). Last Sunday I started my week as usual with a ride to the Northern Kent market town, which is my long-winded way of avoiding using 'Westerham' twice in the same paragraph, but now, of course, I've done just that. So my weekly total was around 38 miles (one 21-miler, one 7.20-miler and a 9.72-miler, you do the math).

Billionaire's shortbread in Costa Coffee

I love coffee shops

Coffee shops have taken the place of pubs in my world. While, in the dim and distant past, a pint and a cigarette used to be my idea of relaxation (it never ended well) I now prefer sitting in Caffe Nero or Costa with a large cappuccino or an English breakfast tea. Alcohol never did me any favours, quite the opposite, and now, four years after giving it up, I found myself in Caterham, home of Ross Cycles, sitting in a Caffe Nero (I think it's the best brand around) reading a new book, Willy Vlautin's The Night Always Comes, his sixth novel (I've read them all). A couple of weeks ago, when I walked from Ross Cycles to Caterham railway station after dropping off my bike for its silver service (click here and here for more details) I stopped off at the Caffe Nero for a large cappuccino and a slice of cake. It was chilled and cosy. Yesterday I found myself alone in the house and decided to jump on a train to Caterham and head back there, book in tow. Again, I ordered a large cappuccino and this time a millionaire's shortbread. There's a tinsel Christmas tree at the front of the store, making it that little bit more cosy. I loved it and I sat there reading until I'd finished my coffee and cake. I found myself on the 1450hrs train back to Purley Oaks from where I walked home.

Sunday: the start of my cycling week

And now it's Sunday morning, almost 0700hrs. I've been up since 0600hrs and managed to listen to Radio Four's Something Understood (I'm guessing the subject was commemoration). I've since switched to the World Service and I'm guessing the news is about to be broadcast. Time to hear more about what is essentially a climb-down on climate change now that COP 26 has come to an end. I'm about to listen to Weekend with Celia Hatton. Coal is being phased down, not phased out, thanks to India, but who can blame them? We've had our industrial revolution, let them have theirs. I just hope that industry worldwide continues with its plans to reduce emissions. I know for a fact that the global steel industry is doing more than its bit to reduce emissions.

But enough of all this. There's around 30 minutes before I need to ride to Westerham to meet Andy and start my cycling week. Hopefully I'll be able to put in some decent mileage this coming week.

Notes from the ride...

The ride in itself was absolutely fine. I rode the standard route along the 269 and down Clarks Lane and when I arrived Andy was inside the Costa drinking a large Americano. He was halfway through a toasted tea cake. There was a long queue and everybody was ordering complicated drinks so I decided to wait it out and chat with Andy before getting up and ordering my English breakfast tea. But the queue never quietened down and in the end Andy left and I had a dilemma on my hands: queue up again or just ride home. I started to queue again, but immediately got annoyed with the whole situation and decided to ride home. I considered the Tudor Tea Rooms, but what was the point? I rode towards the Velo Barn, turned left on to Pilgrim's Lane and then crossed Clarks Lane and followed Pilgrims Lane to Rectory Lane where I turned right and joined Clarks Lane again but a little further up the hill. Loads of stuff was going through my mind. Do I take The Ridge into Woldingham? Do I take Beddlestead Lane and Hesiers Hill? Do I take Beech Farm Road and Washpond Lane? Nothing appealed and I felt I wasn't quite ready or motivated enough to tackle any big hill. This has plenty to do with being overworked. Instead I rode the 269 and reached home around a quarter to eleven (1045hrs). We slobbed for a while, had burgers for lunch and then headed out for a drive to Ightham Mote where I (foolishly) ordered a large cappuccino and a gooey mince pie. I can't say I really enjoyed either of them and vowed there and then to stop cake, biscuits, bread and cappuccinos. On the bread front, no more than three slices a day. Dinner was a light pasta dish with a tasty tomato-based source, home-made, the perfect end to the weekend. Tilly Ramsay survived another dance-off in Strictly.

Bicycle servicing and a growing throwaway culture...

I took the train to Caterham on Saturday morning (30 October 2021). There was rain. As I walked up the hill in the general direction of Ross Cycles the hood on my parka was up and then down and then up again, but when I reached the summit and rounded the corner at the top of Whyteleafe Hill it was little more than the odd spit as I took in my surroundings. Everything looks down at heel and miserable when it rains; cars with dirty hub caps pull out of side roads, an obese man mops the floor of his takeaway and soon I turn left with only a rough idea of where I am going. I could have taken the bus, but the thought of sitting there behind a steamed up window, wearing a mask and passing by the gloomy shop fronts and empty playing fields made my heart sink. As the journey continued, I spotted a red double decker bus crawling along and felt relieved that I'd taken the train, even if I had to wait around for 20 minutes in a bright and deserted waiting room on Purley station. When the train turned up I had a carriage to myself.

Even when I reached the top of the hill, there was still a long way to go, it's a good half hour walk. I turned right and found myself on the home straight. It wasn't long before I was just yards from my destination. Am I happy? On one level, yes. I'm getting my bike back. But on another level no, I'm pretty cheesed off. This morning I received a text saying my bike was ready to pick up and that a receipt had been sent to me via email. I had already spent £90 on a silver service and was expecting to pay a little more for new parts, but what I wasn't ready for was the price at the bottom of the aforementioned receipt: £201! All the parts had worn out, including the bottom bracket. I started to wonder why I had bothered with a silver service. Had I opted for the bronze the bottom bracket would not have been touched. There was certainly no evidence that it needed to be fixed, nothing appeared to be loose. Everything else I expected: new cassette, new chain and front crank, new brake pads, but it still felt a little disappointing parting with the cash. 

"You might as well buy a new bike!"

The thought that "I might as well buy a new bike" crossed my mind as I remembered trying to get my Kona serviced back in 2016. There I was, standing in Ross Cycles, I'd spent the best part of £300 and with that money, once again, I could have bought a cheaper bike with block brakes, perhaps, and yes, cheaper parts, but nevertheless a new bike. 

Perhaps the owner of this bike needs to buy a new one

My own bike wasn't far off being 'basic' in terms of its components (unlike my Kona Scrap, which languishes in my garage with two flat tyres). My current machine is a Specialized Rockhopper, but it doesn't have top-of-the-range components and that, says Ross, is one reason why the final repair bill was so high: the cheaper parts wore out quicker than more expensive parts. Really? Well, I guess that higher spec brakes and gears would offer greater longevity, but let's not ignore the amount of cycling I've undertaken over the past year since I last had a service: easily over 3,000 miles, around 80 to 100 miles a week, I was certainly pushing the envelope, and when so much cycling is being done I should have expected that the brakes and the gears and the cassette and chain were going to wear a little, but this doesn't move away from that price. £291 in total. And that figure is enough for me to nip down to Halfords and buy a new bike. In fact, I checked out Halfords' website and I could have bought a new bike for far less than that, £175 to be precise, but let's stick with a bike for the price of the service; there were a couple of them that appealed and while, obviously, I haven't gone that route, the fact that I could have done riles me slightly. It riles me because I know that this time next year, if I keep up the cycling, it's liable to happen again and I can't think of any way out of it. It means, of course, that if I assume every annual service I have is likely to reach the £300 mark – or thereabouts – then, in a few years from now I'll have around half a dozen unserviced bikes in my garage and just one that works (a new bike). There is, of course, something ridiculous about the whole situation, but let's make no mistake, a scenario now exists where I might as well change my bike every October for a new model rather than getting my current bike serviced, and the worst thing is this: the bar is set very low when you consider that, for around £180, I can nip down to Halfords and buy a new one. Now, people might say that block brakes are terrible compared to hydraulic ones, and they are, I know, but this isn't an argument about blocks versus discs. 

Where am I going wrong?

I'm trying to work out where I'm going wrong. I've considered treating my bike like I treat my teeth (a check-up every six months) but that, theoretically, would halve the bill to around £150 twice a year and still mean I'm spending the best part of £300 on getting it serviced and even then, let's not forget the Slant, a bike I spotted in Halfords a couple of years ago for just £99 new. Assuming that's still around, then just a minor service might result in the utterance of the great phrase: "You might as well buy a new bike, sir! Have you considered the Slant?" At this rate I could open my own bike shop in a few years and my stock would be a dozen or so unserviced bikes. If I went on a cycling mechanic course I could fix them myself and sell them on ebay. 

So where am I going wrong? Am I (or was I) riding too much? Is there anything I can do to reduce an annual servicing bill of almost £300? Should I have taken the bike to the shop solely to fix the brakes and not bothered with a silver service, which gave the bike shop the opportunity to 'look under the bonnet' and find loads of other things that needed doing? 

Other sports would cost more

But then I look at it in the cold light of day: Cycling doesn't cost me much in the general scheme of things. I'd be paying a darn sight more annually if I went swimming three times a week or if I joined a gym. A measly £290 for a service once a year and new parts thrown in is nothing, even if it does mean that theoretically I could buy a new bike with the money spent. Perhaps new bikes are too cheap. But then I think of all the Ammacos and Carreras I see parked up all over the place, outside snooker halls, pubs, railway stations and supermarkets, and I look at them and wonder whether the rider would do what I did and ask for a silver service at a bike shop. Where would they go if told 'you might as well buy a new bike'? The point is that if the brake blocks wear down they'd get them replaced, probably for under £20, and as for replacing the cassette and the front crank, well, they wouldn't.

Taking the bike to the shop is getting very much like visiting the dentist or, perhaps, talking to the hygienist. They're always berating me for this or that, not cleaning my teeth probably, not using the brush in the right way, which I always think is a bit of a farce as even if I did do it properly they'd find something else that I wasn't doing right and it's the same now with bike shops. "You ought to clean the chain more often." And who's to say that's bad advice?

I am smarting at the cost of my service, I am, it's true and yes, I could have bought a new bike with the money. Alright, perhaps a slightly lower spec, but even that isn't the point as, either way, I'd be forking out the money, new bike or newly serviced bike. 

A lot of mileage

I don't feel as if I've been ripped off. I believe the shop was right and that the parts had worn beyond repair and needed replacement. The shop had said that if my bike had higher spec parts they might not have needed replacement, meaning that the cheaper the bike you buy, the quicker the parts wear down. Conversely, however, a higher spec bike would cost more to replace the parts. It's swings and roundabouts, and while I keep obsessing about brake blocks versus discs, that is not the issue here. When I look at my itemised bill, for example, all they did was change the pads for £15. I had covered, easily, 3,000 miles over the year since last October, probably a little more as I'm currently around 1,690 miles based on when I started recording my distances back in late April of this year, and that's not accounting for the six months prior, going back from April 2021 to October 2020. I could be nearer to 3,500 miles or even more.

However, it's all water under the bridge as the money has been spent, a virtually new bike now resides in my garage, it feels great to ride and I'm happy with it, but for almost £300 and that phrase "you might as well buy a new bike" looming large in the back of my mind, I'm ambivalent about the whole episode and will think twice when I next feel that my bike needs to be serviced. From now on it goes in for individual jobs: brake pads, gears and so on. There's really no need for anybody to 'look under the bonnet', it's a bike for heaven's sake.

Baffled, disappointed, confused, disillusioned

Ultimately, I'm left baffled, disappointed, mildly confused and disillusioned either because bikes are so cheap they can be thrown away rather than serviced, or that servicing itself is so expensive. Bikes are bikes, they last forever unless, perhaps, they collide with a car and end up with a bent frame. For me, the frustration lies in the fact that I have a good bike in my garage that I didn't get serviced because I was told 'you might as well buy a new bike'. I'm sure the guys at Cycle King a couple of weeks ago were teeing up the phrase as they told me what might be wrong with my bike. 'You might need an entire new brake'. I fully expected the guys at Evans Cycles to suggest it to me too, had I handed over the bike for one of their silver services.

I was going to look into cycling mechanics courses, and then somebody told me they learnt to fix their bike by watching YouTube videos. Now that's a good idea!

Further reading...

For further reading on this story, check out What's wrong with bike shops?