I spent a lot of my final year at university buying, fixing, and riding bikes. I turned the kitchen into a bike workshop, stayed up deep into the nights watching the Beijing Olympics, then rode off into the sharp East Anglian dawns to dig. It turned out to be a 1961 Raleigh Gran Sport. The next summer I acquired a £25 eBay wreck. I returned to Cambridge in the autumn with a steed of which I could be proud. I kitted it out with twist-grip shifters, a cartridge bottom bracket, mudguards. I spent the summer trying to find my feet again, digging by day and restoring the bike in the evenings. I don’t remember much about that time, but I do remember the bike. How hard could a bike be? I got it going, more by luck than judgement. Besides, I kept a Land Rover running with baler twine, gaffer tape, and hammers. Beneath that, it was black, bore the optimistic legend ‘COURIER’, and was - the bewildered staff told me - “unrideable”. The green patina suggested a recent immersion in the River Cam. In desperation, I pointed to a bedraggled looking lump of steel, awaiting resuscitation in the corner. The cheapest boneshaker in their display was still out of my budget. My bike was pinched, and after a few days of being more-than-usually late for lectures, I walked into the bike shop on Botolph Lane. I got into bikes as a student in Cambridge in the mid-Noughties. Like every teenager trying to find their way, I read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - loved it, too - but I was still not entirely sold on the philosophy of fixing-as-therapy. Bikes were a mode of transport, not a way of life. Growing up, I never really got into fixing bikes. But I think there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Facing an uncertain future and a vague prognosis, I found myself gradually withdrawing. But psychologically, it’s been pretty horrible. Physically, it’s probably been for the best. I’ve been compelled to take a lot of time off work, immobilised by a knee injury.
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