Personal Transportation
After relying on public transport for over 10 years now, we’ve finally had enough of the DLR and Tubes being out for maintenance every weekend that we’ve had to invest in some non-public transport. So yesterday we took a big red bus and went and bought ourselves some push bikes! (I’ll spare you the story about how long it actually took us to get to the store. That involved another DLR and bus trip, coupled with a return trip back home to get the right address, then the right journey…)
Picking bikes was reasonably easy once we managed to grab the one shop assistant that actually wanted to help us buy anything! Bec didn’t want anything pink, and I just wanted a bike, and we wanted something that was actually in stock so we could go for a ride the next day when the weather was meant to be fantastic.
Strangely enough it wasn’t quite as easy as you’d think to match all of those criteria, but we just about managed it in the end. The only bikes they could sell us that met possibly the most important criteria of us being able to use them the next day were still broken down in boxes, and we’d have to make them up ourselves. Apparently not a big job, but it just meant we’d have to get two huge boxes home somehow first.
Or did we?…
A small brainwave later, and we were ensconced in a small alley just around the corner with bike bits laid out everywhere, and spanner and Allen keys in hand. A bit of sweat, swearing, grazed knuckles, some odd looks from passers by, and just one trip back into the shop right at the finishing stage to grab the sales guy so he could tell us why Bec’s handlebars kept turning around while her bike didn’t, and we had some functional bikes on which to get home.
Then we just had to get home! Now if you know me well you’ll find it not too hard to believe that currently I’m not the world’s best example of fitness. There were a few more stops then there really should have needed to be on the way home, but in my defence it was about an hour’s long ride, along some pretty busy mainish roads in London (weekend) traffic. And did I mention that there were some hilly bits? And that my seat was really too low so I felt like I was back on a BMX? And that tight jeans didn’t make it easy for my thighs to move? It gave Bec something to laugh about anyway. “Are you really that unfit?!”. Thanks, I needed that understanding and encouragement! And for that I made her ride behind me at my pace for a while while my legs recovered somewhat.
But we made it! And without even getting too lost on the way.The bikes then were put to bed for the night in the bike shed downstairs. I have to say that whoever decided to include a bikeshed in to plans for this apartment block was pretty much a genius. Looking at other buildings you see bikes on balconies, in living rooms etc. I’m just really glad we don’t have to deal with trying to get a bike in a lift, then through the front door.
How am I feeling today? My back twinges a little, and my bum hurts! The first from putting them together, I suspect, while I’m not in much doubt about the why for the second ailment! But I’m still keen to go out today. After a bit of seat adjustment etc, and with a camera so I’ve got an excuse to stop a few more times now and then… I guess at at least I managed to avoid any chafing so far!
Now we’ll just have to hope we have a little more luck than our friend Pete and manage to not have them stolen, or at least until after summer’s over!…
I hope you wear helmets, otherwise I am going to have to spend my time worrying about you in London traffic.