Whats your love story with your bike?

shane · Post by **shane** » 9 Jan 2015, 12:21pm

After my recent creative outburst about my new bike, I've now turned it into a blog post.

We spend many hours and months on our bikes and many of us end up talking to our bikes or talking about " us" when you're actually travelling alone.

So Im sure many folks have a story about how they fell in love with there bike, whether it grew with time after buying new or second hand, or maybe it was love at first sight on eBay or at a market in a far off land?

Whats your love story?

hondated · Post by **hondated** » 9 Jan 2015, 2:11pm

I don't just love my bikes I love all bikes. Whenever I go into town I cannot help but stop at look at any bikes that may be there. It drives my wife mad. The only difficulty I have with this obsession is making sure that I am not standing too close to any bike I am looking at to ensure no one thinks I am planning to steal it.
If I am in my car or on my motorbike I always have a quick glance at any bikes I pass.
They don't have to be the latest carbon fibre ones either. In fact I much prefer seeing those with old well worn bikes out using them.
They are the best invention ever to me.

eileithyia · Post by **eileithyia** » 9 Jan 2015, 2:16pm

My first touring bike was Dawes Super Galaxy, until then i used my b/f spare bike, but that summer a trip to York Rally meant i could see and review all on offer. Decided on DSG in Gold Mink, when it eventually turned up i loved that bike and it gave me many happy miles. I was amused by the snobbishness of 4 students in a pub in Helston who wondered if really needed the extra range of gears over and above the Galaxies that they were all touring and had i found a hill i could not climb...... I just quietly (an internally smugly) replied 'oh yes Porlock' at which point he choked on his beer.

Sadly it went to the great touring land when someone decided to drive into the back of it.

shane · Post by **shane** » 9 Jan 2015, 2:17pm

hondated wrote: I cannot help but stop at look at any bikes that may be there. It drives my wife mad.

Aah yes, that thing when someone cycles past, you say " Nice rack" evil look from the missus and you try to explain what is so nice about a Tubus titanium rack

Vantage · Post by **Vantage** » 9 Jan 2015, 4:08pm

My Vantage is only 3 years old, but that's the longest I've ever held onto a bike.
She was bought to get me out of my flat and help deal with depression and other medical problems most of which are slowly improving and a few new ones developing in that time. I also wanted to get back to something I've always loved, cycling.
In the time I've had her, I've spent more money than I could afford on getting her just right and on maintenance and done more miles than any bike before her. She's given me less trouble than any other bike before her and way more smiles.
I wouldn't be able to go visit my daughters as often without her and I wouldn't be able to go spend time with my girlfriend as much either and when all that occasionally goes pear shaped, a ride relieves my troubles and sets my mind at ease.
She's just been treated to a new Carradice Pendle in green & honey too

Some folk say you can't love an inanimate object...
I disagree

I literally would be lost without my bottom of the range cheapo but entirely 'me' tourer

hondated · Post by **hondated** » 9 Jan 2015, 5:40pm

shane wrote:
hondated wrote: I cannot help but stop at look at any bikes that may be there. It drives my wife mad.

Aah yes, that thing when someone cycles past, you say " Nice rack" evil look from the missus and you try to explain what is so nice about a Tubus titanium rack

shane great to know there is someone else like me out there. Ted

hondated · Post by **hondated** » 9 Jan 2015, 5:46pm

Vantage wrote:My Vantage is only 3 years old, but that's the longest I've ever held onto a bike.
She was bought to get me out of my flat and help deal with depression and other medical problems most of which are slowly improving and a few new ones developing in that time. I also wanted to get back to something I've always loved, cycling.
In the time I've had her, I've spent more money than I could afford on getting her just right and on maintenance and done more miles than any bike before her. She's given me less trouble than any other bike before her and way more smiles.
I wouldn't be able to go visit my daughters as often without her and I wouldn't be able to go spend time with my girlfriend as much either and when all that occasionally goes pear shaped, a ride relieves my troubles and sets my mind at ease.
She's just been treated to a new Carradice Pendle in green & honey too
Some folk say you can't love an inanimate object...
I disagree I literally would be lost without my bottom of the range cheapo but entirely 'me' tourer

Great response Vantage I am glad to read your bike is helping with your depression.
Its got me wondering now whether bikes should be available on the NHS rather than " Happy Pills" as they could be more cost affective.

shane · Post by **shane** » 9 Jan 2015, 5:58pm

hondated wrote:Its got me wondering now whether bikes should be available on the NHS rather than " Happy Pills" as they could be more cost affective.

Totally, and now to talk to government into transferring even 10% of the health budget into cycling infrastructure (or 0.01% of the defence budget). Ooh wait, more happy cycle tourists, more tolerant happy people less people hating the world outside of the British border......how will they sell that to the share holders....

But do lets stay on topic, loving these stories

gplhl · Post by **gplhl** » 9 Jan 2015, 7:54pm

My bike I love is not actually my touring bike, although I am very fond of my Surly Long Haul Trucker.

My most cherished and loved bike is a road bike, I've spent as many hours riding her as I have my touring bikes, she's not any bike. She was going to be thrown in a skip. A friend called me and said come and look, it's old, rusty and not worth selling, unless you want it it's going in the skip.

So not thinking much about this so called wreck I went and had a look, she's white and when I first saw her with lots of rust, perished tyres, original red rubber brake blocks. She was a 1986 Raleigh Milk Race Special. I pumped up the tyres and rode two miles before the perished tyres disintegrated and then I pushed her home.
I put new tyres on her, cleaned her up but she still looked old, very worn with cleaner rust, still rusty, peeling stickers, she looked tired.

Getting on her she comes alive, steel frame or not, she's quick and with only 10 gears and down tube shifters I rode her all the time in preference to the new shiny Cannondales hung up in the garage.

I even only had flat pedals on and turning up at a newly formed local club could hear the sniggers of others on their carbon fibre rides. We didn't listen, we let the ride show what she could do... They all stopped laughing.

I rode her on Audax, club rides, Sportives again to laughter, our finest ride being the wiggle French Revolution a couple of years ago. Getting off the ferry in France people stared, they whispered to each other and rudely pointed. We set off and took pleasure and saying "hi" and then "goodbye" as we passed several of the mockers. We got the fastest time (yeah I know it's not a race, I still look at results and sort them in excel, I'm a self confessed statistic geek). There were two courses, one was 59 miles, the longer one we did 74 miles. We did it so quick the 59 miler fastest time only got in 5 minutes before we did. No one at either of the clubs I ride with laugh at old bikes any more, they even show some appreciation.

You don't need carbon, you don't need a million gears and you don't need bling, the old steel girls still got it.

In the end like an ex girlfriend she eventually broke my heart. And just like the girlfriend yes it was all my fault! Her chain stay snapped. I should have treated the rust, I should have treated her better and trying to get back a Strava KOM on a local hill broke her. I will have her mended when I get home, she's worth more to me than all my other bikes, she's got a soul and she's my mate.

Gary
http://www.longbikeride.co.uk

She's small compared to the newer bikes, photos not great but it's all I can access at the moment.

Valbrona · Post by **Valbrona** » 9 Jan 2015, 9:07pm

'What's your love story with your bike?'

Robin Williams famously claimed that he was bike-sexual.

Mistik-ka · Post by **Mistik-ka** » 10 Jan 2015, 2:38am

The bike in my love story is the tandem (our first ever) that Mrs. M-k and I commissioned from DaVinci Designs to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. The love in my story is Mrs. M-k. :wink:

fishfright · Post by **fishfright** » 10 Jan 2015, 1:25pm

hondated wrote:
shane wrote:
hondated wrote: I cannot help but stop at look at any bikes that may be there. It drives my wife mad.

Aah yes, that thing when someone cycles past, you say " Nice rack" evil look from the missus and you try to explain what is so nice about a Tubus titanium rack

shane great to know there is someone else like me out there. Ted

Same , ( stands up and solemly states) My name is Steven and I'm a bike-a-holic

pedalsheep · Post by **pedalsheep** » 10 Jan 2015, 1:51pm

Same , ( stands up and solemly states) My name is Steven and I'm a bike-a-holic

Me too and I'm not even a bloke! :lol:

My other half can't understand how I can immediately recognise someone's bike but can't always recognise them if they are not on their bike!

tatanab · Post by **tatanab** » 10 Jan 2015, 2:40pm

I am a dirty rotten lothario.

I currently have 7 machines -some abused! I have tried to add up all the frames I've had in 45 years of club riding. I easily remembered 35 and I am sure there must be another 5 or so that have slipped my mind.

Post by **Mick F** » 10 Jan 2015, 4:03pm

I'm rather involved with my Mercian and it's no secret. :oops:

Not the bike as such, just the frame.

Made for me in 1986, refurbished for its 21st birthday in 2007, and loved continually.
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