was a Crossfell, at that time the most expensive of Overbury’s diamond frame mountain bikes.
By the end of this outing Wanda was very depressed. It was not surprising: the last bicycle she had ridden had been a borrowed ladies’ Marston Golden Sunbeam which she had used while house-hunting in South London in the 1970s, perhaps the finest conventional bicycle ever made. This was the bicycle on male versions of which deceptively fragile-looking curates used to zoom past me, as I frantically pedalled my Selbach back in the 1930s. She liked the semi-open frame of the Wild Cat, but found it difficult to live up to the image conjured up by its name. She couldn’t cope with the complexity of the twin-change shift mechanisms on the handlebars which controlled the eighteen gears: the right-hand one which shifted the chain from any one of the six sprockets to another on the Shimano Extra Duty Freewheel Block; the left-hand one which shifted the chain on the costly oval Shimano Biopace triple ring chainset. ‘Biopace delivers power when you need it most,’ the blurb said. ‘Computer analysis shows round rings force unnatural leg dynamics that interfere with smooth cadence and can lead to knee strain.’
In comparison with a traditional lightweight bicycle fitted with narrow, high-pressure tyres I found the knobbly mountain tyres sluggish uphill, but very good downhill at speed on a track full of pot-holes. The saddles, amalgams of leather and plastic, we both agreed were hell. By the time our trial run through the wilds of the Ashton Court Park was over I had resigned myself to giving up the idea of mountain biking, or any other sort of biking, in Ireland; but when we got back to the shop and redeemed our deposits Wanda, to my surprise, told me to go ahead and order. ‘If I have it I will have to use it,’ she said.
There was no problem in producing my Crossfell in time, as there was a frame in stock of the right size that only needed stove enamelling. Wanda’s Wild Cat, as its name suggested, was more difficult. It would have to be built from scratch in seven days. But first her inside leg had to be measured for the frame – a feat difficult to accomplish in a crowded bike shop when the subject is wearing a skirt – and all work ceased while I performed it.
In a state of shock at the realization of the enormity of what I was doing I allowed Andy Powell to persuade me that I should also have eighteen gears. I forget the reason he gave. Perhaps he had run out of five-sprocket freewheel blocks, the last shipment from Osaka having gone down with all hands in the South China Sea to become a source of wonder to marine archaeologists around 3000 AD, who would eventually identify them as amulets against the evil eye.
In the course of the next hour or so I spent vast amounts of money – we paid for everything ourselves – on what bicycle builders laughingly refer to as ‘optional extras’: pumps, front and rear reflectors, guards to protect the derailleur mechanisms, frame pads to make it easier to lift my diamond-framed Crossfell over gates and fences, over-sized mud guards for the over-sized tyres, two sets of front and rear panniers, front and rear pannier frames to hook them on, ‘stuff sacs’, rudely named bags to keep our waterproof clothing in, front and rear lights, drinking bottles, Sam Browne belts and trouser clips made of reflective material that might improve our chance of not being knocked down and squashed flat at night. Foolishly, having donned them and then looked at one another, we decided against crash helmets – ‘head protection for the thinking cyclist’, as one catalogue put it.
We also needed a whole lot of tools and spares: a three-way spanner, a ten-in-one dumbell spanner, two brake spanners, a pair of cone spanners, a Shimano crank bolt spanner and freewheel remover, a 4″ adjustable wrench, three Allen keys, a spoke key, a cable cutter, a pair of pointed pliers, a tyre pressure gauge, an adaptor so that a garage air-line or a car foot pump could be used with Presta bicycle valves, a set of tyre levers, spare spokes, two spare inner tubes, spare gear change and brake cables, spare brake blocks (at a colossal £3.90 a pair), and valve caps.
My next purchase was something called a Citadel Lock which had a half-inch metal shackle said to be proof against a pair of 42″ bolt cutters and big enough to lock both bikes to a parking meter or a set of railings at the same time. However it was so heavy that we left it at home and took with us instead a couple of pre-coiled 5ft steel cable locks which would last about ten seconds against bolt cutters.
By this time I began to feel myself in a state of euphoria, like a character in a Fitzgerald novel going shopping – Gatsby stocking up on shirts, or Nicole Diver buying an army of toy soldiers in Paris in 1925: ‘It was fun spending money in the sunlight of the foreign city, with healthy bodies … that sent streams of colour up to their faces; with arms and hands, legs and ankles that stretched out confidently, reaching or stepping with the confidence of women lovely to men.’ Although it was a bit different in Bristol in deep December for a senior citizen with all the confidence of a man unlovely to women – well, most women.
Then we shopped for clothes. The most difficult to find on the spur of the moment, because they were very expensive, were the long zip jackets with baggy trousers to match made from Gore-Tex, a wind and waterproof material which allows perspiration to evaporate. Shoes were another problem. Cycling shoes designed for riding lightweight bikes on the road would be hopeless anywhere off it in waterlogged old Ireland. In the end we both took climbing boots and short, wool-lined wellingtons which were warm and could be accommodated on the big mountain bike pedals but soon lost their linings. And we bought long wool and nylon stockings with elasticated tops that came up over the knee and waterproof over-mitts with warm inner linings.
We also spent a gruesome hour in company with other senior citizens stocking up for the winter, buying thermal underwear, which everyone said we must have: long johns to sleep in and underwear to ride in. Some of it looked terrible, especially a particular brand of men’s underpants which came down to the knees and gave the wearer, in this case myself, an air of geriatric instability. It also, when it warmed up, gave off an awful pong. ‘I wonder,’ Wanda said, emerging from the fitting room in which she had given the thumbs-down to the underpants, and surveying the milling throng, ‘if they are all going to Ireland, too, on bicycles. If they are we shall look pretty silly.’
As I had promised myself, I took with me a huge cap that had belonged to my father – almost a dead ringer of that worn by the now dead and gone Jackie Coogan, which Wanda from now on referred to as my ‘Jackie Hooghly’.
The bikes were delivered to us by van from Bristol the following Tuesday at what was literally the eleventh hour. Together with the optional and non-optional extras, all done up in protective wadding, they made an impressive pair of packages, and the bikes themselves, which had been wrapped like Egyptian mummies in the equivalent of cerements, were so scintillating when finally exposed to the light of day that it seemed a pity to foul them up by riding them. If there really was such a concept as state-of-the-art, this was it.
‘We can put it all down to expenses,’ I said to Wanda.
‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ she said. ‘I can just see the expression on the Inspector of Taxes’ face. He’ll laugh all the way to your funeral.’
‘Well, why did you let me buy all this stuff if that’s what you think?’ I asked.
‘I was going to stop you,’ she said, ‘but when I saw how much you were enjoying yourself, somehow I couldn’t. You looked like a small boy in a sweet shop.’
We set off to negotiate some of the network of lanes in the Isle of Purbeck, the majority of which involve ascents of unnatural steepness. The first part included a fairly hard climb along the flanks of Smedmore Hill. This time I rode behind Wanda in order to be able to tell her when to operate the front and rear gear shift mechanisms. This worked all right until she suddenly pulled the left-hand lever back and at the same time pushed the right-hand one forward, while still riding on the flat, which transferred her instantly to the lowest gear available to her, 23.6″, leaving her with her legs whirring round
