DIY in my world has always been self-defence, not self-expression. Those who can gaze upon an Allen key and dream of technical, self-made, interior design upgrades to their living environment exist in another ‘verse to the one that I inhabit. Yes, when continuation of the status quo is put in jeopardy I can rise to the occasion and heft an implement of household artisanship not directly related to the kitchen with – maybe, not the best – but certainly with the more satisfyingly mediocre.
So, it was with a certain amount of trepidation that I recently assayed the construction of a domestic tower of shelves and drawers which was supposed to replace the “cake-stand-type” fixture that you more regularly see in bathrooms which lurks by the side of my armchair in the living room.
These suspended containers were themselves a reaction to the arrangements that had to be put in place when I returned from my shock stay in hospital after the unexpected diagnosis of my thrombosis and embolisms. I was told, strictly, and eye-to-eye by a determined doctor that I was to have a month of almost total rest and that I was furthermore to be ministered unto by Toni!
As it is quite impossible to live any sort of modern life (even in a state of “almost total rest”) without the accoutrements of electronic gadgetry about one, there had to be surfaces to hand on which computers, phones, iPads, mobile phones and cups of decaffeinated tea could be placed.
The immediate solution was to purchase a TV table, the ‘home’ form of the hospital table, and that was sufficient for the immediate problems of enforced immobility – but as soon as I could move around a little the implicit invalid associations of the teak-effect plastic began to pall and disconcertingly define as well, so it had to go.
The “cake-stand” alternative always looked as though it would be more at home in the bathroom and so it went too.
There are few things more depressing that the arrival of a heavy flatpack of potential furniture. The acrimony started before the thing had even been unpacked and its consequent construction was completed in sullen silence and solitary strenuousness. But it was eventually completed, it stood firm and the drawers fitted: and that, surely is the acme of technical achievement.
Though, put next to that piece of pre-cut, pre-drilled and pre-packaged purgatory, I can now place a finished piece of technical mechanical installation on the handlebars of my electric bike.
My bike is basically a good buy: sourced from one of those pre-production sites asking for seed money for a good idea, I was duly seduced and parted with a quite surprising amount of money to get a stylist, collapsible electric bike. The one I have at present in the second iteration of the basic design with fatter wheels and a funkier colour. But it didn’t have a throttle.
One of the disadvantages of the bike is that it is heavy. On day last week I allowed the battery to run down and was confident that I could use the bike as an ‘ordinary’ cycle with no electric boost at all. Wrong! Very, very wrong! My stylist nippy bike was transformed into one of those instruments of torture that you can find in the more severe sorts of gymnasia where a bloody huge effort is rewarded with bloody little. I even toyed with the idea of walking the bike back home rather than peddling frantically in first and creeping along the road in a humiliating display of mismatch of effort and achievement that I had not repeated since a churningly inefficient dogpaddle from my distant youth!
So, actually getting the thing moving is sometimes a difficulty. On my first bike the throttle attachment took care of stopping and starting on inclines, as my frantic attempts to get to first gear when I really needed to usually resulted in a clunking of cog wheels and a crazily haphazard approach to direction. My ‘superior’ second bike did not come with a throttle as standard, but I rectified that omission by carefully selecting a throttle as an ‘extra’ when I ordered the bike.
I have had the bike for some time, but the throttle has remained stubbornly unavailable. I have used, my not unimpressive writing skills, to little effect. The Customer Service of MATE Bikes is notoriously and internationally awful. The delivery of the part is over TWO YEARS LATE. And I didn’t add an exclamation mark at the end of that sentence because a single exclamation mark would be pitifully inadequate to express my contempt for the service that I have had, and my self-respect does not allow me to use two or more in my written work.
After the Long Wait for a simple part to get to me, a sudden email informed me that it was on its way. And they got the address wrong. Again.
Now I have to admit that the original mistake was mine. When I ordered the first bike, I typed the post code number incorrectly and MATE have, in spite of my repeated explanations, failed to rectify the number. So, my long-awaited part when to another part of Catalonia.
And do not think for a moment that it was easy to get the delivery company to cope with the mistake. Contacting the company by email, phone and on the web all failed. I went to the local depot of the company which is a few towns away and was told that my package was in a different ‘region’ of the company and they had no contact with that particular region and, even if they did, the only people who could change the delivery address were the people who sent the package, i.e. MATE Bikes.
The eventual solution was to accept that the package was in a different region. Ask for it to be sent to a local shop that was used as a sort of pick-up centre and go there.
At least we sent through part of the National Park of Montserrat to get to the small town (that neither of us had heard of before) and had some spectacular views of the otherworldly rock formations to convince us that we had not wasted the best part of a morning going and coming back.
Then I had to fix the throttle to the bike.
In theory it is simple. MATE even have a series of how-to videos, one of which is ‘Changing the throttle’ – a video that I have watched a number of times.
There were two problems. The first was that the horn and rear light indicator (I told you it was a more sophisticated version of the original bike) was perched on the handlebar where the throttle should have fitted. And the second problem was that the truly astonishing writhing mass of leads and wires that are part of the bike are hidden from view in a zipped sleeve which, once unzipped is entirely disinclined to zip up again.
I
do not intend to explain how the problems were (and were not) dealt with. Suffice to say, the throttle is fitted and, the
more extraordinary part, it works. For
the moment – and I am OK with short term gains - it is done!
And the technical elements of my engineering were accomplished with four different types of Allen key. And what an appropriate verb to use!
