It is over half a century since I last fell off a bike – which would seem to suggest to the perspicacious reader that that fifty year record has been smashed. As indeed has my pride.
Let me rush to my
own balanced defence. The machine culprit in my discomfort (because
of course, the fault cannot be mine) was not my trusty big bike with
basket, but rather a newfangled purchase which needs a certain amount
of explanation.
As part of a master
plan for completely invented situations, I managed to persuade myself
that what I really needed was to support a Kickstarter project for
the world's smallest collapsible electric bike. Which I now have.
Setting it up was a little more complicated than it should have been
because I ignored my generational position and thought that I could
do it with the minimum of instruction. I couldn't. And it took for
ever for me to discover that there were written instructions as well
as photographs in the twenty page booklet – that was obviously far
too long for me to read through before I started pushing buttons and
making things telescope.
Or not. Eventually
I managed (with Toni's help) to get the thing to some sort of
completion. The battery looks like an oversized can of Coke –
though a bloody sight heavier. And the battery needed to soak up
power for a few hours until it was ready to attach to the bike –
which gave me a period to practice sitting on the thing. Which was
not quite as easy as you would imagine. The bike is an A-frame
construction, which looks quite odd and feels even odder when you are
sitting on it – especially when the seat has not been adjusted
properly. And that fault, I maintain was the reason that I fell, in
slow motion, onto the surface of an empty road.
Let me hasten to say
that I was not injured, merely a scabbed knee (now there's a
regression to childhood!) a knocked elbow and bruised hand. Reading
through that, it actually seems worse than it was, I did (after a few
shocked seconds) get to my feet and continue cycling, making sure
that I kept my weight forward to keep the seat from going backward.
It was an
experience. The small solid wheels made sure that I experienced
every crack in the surface and I gripped the handlebars for all I was
worth. Peddling to make the battery kick in was a new and very
disturbing experience. But one that I am sure that I will get used
to and, who knows, it might actually become part of my multi-system
form of transport to make my weekly visits to Barcelona more
efficient and cheaper. My plan was to cycle to the station, take a
train to Barcelona, cycle to my meeting place and then do all that
in reverse on the way back. Hmm. The more I read all that the less
likely it is to happen. But it was a good idea. Probably is a good
idea if I can make the experience a little more natural. This is
very much work in progress.
And I have been
using the car more than the bike since The Fall. But I have to admit
that this is pure laziness rather than some deep seated trauma.
