7 Reasons

Tag: bicycle

  • 7 Reasons That You Shouldn’t do Bicycle Maintenance at 3am

    7 Reasons That You Shouldn’t do Bicycle Maintenance at 3am

    3am:  A time when almost everyone is in bed, sleeping.  But you may not be.  You may be lying in bed, unable to sleep.  You may be pontificating on weighty and important matters such as: What is the best wine to serve with SPAM?  Why does my local supermarket always run out of crumpets on Monday?  What would win in a fight; a pangolin or a labrador?  Usually these thoughts are inconclusive but, as you lay thinking important things, you may have a eureka moment and suddenly – and rather excitingly – the cause of the strange noise that your bicycle has been making all week will become apparent to you.  But under no circumstance, no matter how enthused you are, should you take any action at this time.  Here are seven reasons you shouldn’t do bicycle maintenance at 3am.

    a poster prohibiting a cycles being fixed at 3am with a spanner.

    1.  It’s Cold.  Not in bed, it’s nice and warm there.  But it will be cold in the kitchen.  Very cold.  But that’s where the bicycle and tools are.  So, as you’ve arrived downstairs wearing a t-shirt and pyjama bottoms, you’ll grab whatever clothes you can find from the cupboard under the stairs.  And fairly soon, outfitted in green flip-flops, a pink and brown striped scarf, a beige trenchcoat,  a blue bobble hat and a pair of grey fingerless gloves, you’ll think to yourself, never mind, it’s not like anyone will see me. Then you’ll head into the kitchen where it will be…

    2.  Dark.  So you’ll put the kitchen lights on, and the kitchen will become very bright indeed.  So bright, in fact, that you’ll hurt your eyes and be caused to squint.  But you’ll set to work anyway; squinting, with spanner in hand and then, out of the corner of your squinty eye, you’ll notice a light, shining through your window (because no one covers their kitchen windows).  Yes, it’s…

    3.  The Neighbours.  Or more specifically, the neighbours whose bedroom overlooks your kitchen.  And you’ll do what anyone would do in this circumstance.  You’ll stand up, squinting, smile and wave at them.  Mostly to reassure them that it’s you and not a brainsick, colour-blind tramp who has broken in to steal the pasta from your kitchen.  Or the lemons.  And eventually, after the initial shock at seeing your outfit has worn off, they’ll realise that you’re not a burglar.  And the spanner that you’re waving in your right-hand will probably mirror their opinion of you.  Anyway, the neighbours will soon go back to sleep and you’ll return to the bike and work slowly and deliberately, in order to be…

    4.  Quiet.  Shh.  Very Quiet.  As quiet as a timid dormouse breaking wind next to a hungry lion.  Because your bedroom’s above the kitchen.  And making a noise would be inconsiderate/very very dangerous.  So you’ll work quietly, and that will go well.  Until you drop the spanner onto the quarry tiles.  And you will drop the spanner onto the quarry tiles.  Then – suddenly – and without warning, you will be face to face with…

    5.  Angry Woman.   And Angry Woman is…angry.  Furious, in fact.  Angry Woman is…shouting.  She’s shouting things like:

    “What the hell are you doing?” In this circumstance – even though you have a spanner in your hand and a partly disassembled bicycle in front of you, you shouldn’t resort to sarcasm.  That will make Angry Woman turn red and growl.  You don’t want that.  And then she may shout…

    “You love that bicycle more than you love me.” Now,  the last time she said something, you spoke, and that didn’t go at all well.  But that doesn’t mean that pausing and considering your words carefully is a good idea this time; it certainly isn’t.  Because then it will appear that you’re actually considering whether you love the bicycle more.  And even though your bicycle isn’t the one yelling and shouting at you, and it does have red handlebars and a nice…no, no you don’t love the bicycle more.  Really.  Anyway, the pause is a bad thing.  Because then she’ll shout…

    “You’re supposed to be in bed.   WITH ME!” Okay, so sarcasm and thinking haven’t gone well for you.  What’s left?  Humour?  No.    “I didn’t think you’d want your bottom bracket lubricating at 3am, darling” is the wrong reply.  And after she’s shouted,

    “And what the hell are you wearing?!” (it’s rhetorical this time) before storming upstairs, you’ll probably come to the conclusion that it’s time to go…

    6.  Back To Bed.  Stepping out of your Beach-Boy-hobo-Humprey-Bogart-on-acid-costume, you’ll return to the nice warm bed where you’ll discover by touching legs with your wife that your body temperature is at least ten centigrade lower than hers.  And then she will kick you.  Very hard.  This will hurt, and in two days time you’ll have a large blue and purple bruise on your left shin.  At this point though, when the pain subsides, you’ll fall into a deep, satisfying, refreshing sleep and the next morning you’ll wake up and feel amazing.  And you’ll feel that way right up until the moment you open your eyes and see the…

    7.  Oily Fingerprints All Over The Sheets And Pillows.  Ooops.  And later, on your cycle ride, you may feel inclined to visit both the florist and the chocolatier.

  • 7 Reasons to Leave Your Car at Home

    7 Reasons to Leave Your Car at Home

    It’s World Car-Free Day today.  And to celebrate, here are seven reasons to leave your car at home.

    A Malaysian traffic jam (car,cars,gridlock,motorway,rush-hour)

    1.  It’s Healthier.  Rather than driving to work, and getting stressed and aggravated at the wheel of a car on the way, you can cycle instead.  It’s much better for you, and you won’t just be sitting there, impotently experiencing road rage, so you’ll feel really good and be a lot healthier as a result.  Well, until you get run over by a minicab and offered a fight by a disproportionately cross man in a white pick-up truck, that is.  But that doesn’t happen every day.  Some days it’s a blue one.

    2.  There Are Buses Available.  In order to reduce the traffic on the road and free it up to make more room for areas that are coned-off for no apparent reason, you can take the bus to work.  Because it’s always fun to ride in a vehicle in which the driver treats the accelerator as an on/off button, and in which anyone sitting on the upper deck is likely to experience motion sickness from the swaying as it rounds corners at improbable speeds.  Not to mention the persistent nagging doubt that the bus will topple over.  That’s where the real terror lies.  Still, fear of death is life-affirming, so you’ll feel better as a result.

    3.  The Environment.  Cars produce a lot of pollution*, and anyone that’s ever walked along the pavement next to a queue of traffic in the morning will be able to testify to the amount of noise-pollution that they emit.  From the teenagers in the Vauxhall Corsa playing neurofunk at stomach-churning levels to the grey-faced businessmen listening to BBC Radio 4 at such a volume that, though you try not to listen, you can actually feel the shipping forecast reverberating through your skeleton as you walk past, traffic is intrusively noisy.  But don’t panic.  Though you may feel faint through sheer boredom on hearing the shipping forecast, it won’t actually kill you.  Unless you concentrate on it quite hard.

    4.  The Train.  You may be able to get the train to work.  This will help you gain a new perspective on time and, as you realise that time, in fact, does not exist, and is just a series of made up numbers wholly unrelated to maths or the concept of measurement, you’ll relax and eventually come to enjoy starting your working day at lunchtime.  Or 08:57, as First Capital Connect call it.

    5.  Parking Vouchers.  Because you’ve paid for that parking permit, damn it. And every minute that your car is parked on the street outside your house you’re getting value for money. And eventually, if your car is parked outside your house for long enough, you’ll begin to turn a profit.  Surely?

    6.  The Tube.  Perhaps you live near an underground railway.  And there’s no experience like getting together with a few thousand other people in a tin can and all trying not to look at each other (or at each other’s reflections in the window, that’s an amateur mistake).  Ever wanted to know what you’d smell like if you didn’t bathe for a week?  Go and stand next to a fat man in a cheap suit on a tube train.  Then go home and shower.  For a long time.

    7.  Because It’s A Good Idea.  It’s actually a good idea to leave your car at home occasionally.  Even if it turns out that the car is the most effective mode of transport for you, you’ll at least have explored the alternatives available.  And if it isn’t, then you’ll have learned something valuable.  Like discovering that bananas are easier to eat than apples, or that you enjoy eating gorgonzola more that you enjoy eating paté, or that kiwis give you more energy than a Mars bar.  Or that you’re much hungrier than you thought you were.

    *There are loads of car-pollution statistics available here.