A bicycle in Manhattan

I read in slashdot that New York City Council is to build 250 miles of protected cycle lanes in coming years in response to the mortality rate there for cyclists. When I arrived in Manhattan in 1962, for a year’s visit to study at the Courant Institute, I bought a secondhand bicycle. Within days it was stolen. When I went to a police station to report the theft I was greeted with gales of perplexed laughter. I decided to leave it at that, which no doubt saved my life.

My experience in Bridgewater in the mid 90s wasn’t much different. My first bike was a good second hand. It’s replacement was done crap I got for a fiver. Oddly enough that one didn’t get nicked, even when I stuck a bloody great whip antenna onto the back…

We had a 30 year old “mum” bike stolen from our garage, but that’s not even the odd part – they left a fairly fancy, modern bike with a puncture in return. I call it a “mum” bike because that was literally what it was – Di’s old bike reconditioned, which my wife was riding for exercise. It was a very basic bike, but it did what was needed. The one they left was much fancier. The police didn’t even come out and check the “dropped off” bike for evidence – nice police-work.

Sadly, they didn’t drop off any golf clubs to replace mine that they also stole, but equally the funny mental image of someone teetering down the road on an archaic bike while trying to balance a set of (equally old) clubs still makes me smile. Plus, I can actually hit a half-decent driver shot with a modern set of clubs (balance), which I never mastered with the old ones (although I could hit a mean 5 iron round a course!).