I find myself increasingly frustrated by the idea of having to use public transport especially when i have heavy bags to carry and know that i could do it much more easily by bike. So last night I spent extra effort to make sure that I could ride my bike across London today. My folder is a Birdy Blue, and as such has mudguards that are integral to the bikes stability when folded. They are also vulnerable and so have got somewhat damaged over the last two years. So much damage that the front is held together with black gaffa tape and the rear had split in half.
My new set of mudguards arrived last week, and so I would normally have spent my Saturday at the Wolverhampton bike shed fixing other people’s bikes, and then in our yard, fixing up my own. However this week I was bound for London to attend a hack day, so Saturday bike tinkering was out of the picture.
For a while I was evaluating the options for travel from Marylebone to Kew, and thought that I could probably do it via the underground fairly easily. But then I thought of the bag of stuff I’d be carrying and how I would have to lug it around the underground stations. The wheeled bag is a drag (literally) and doesn’t fit onto the front rack of a boris bike, and a backpack is out of the question because of the weight.
I kept looking at the Birdy and realised that I wasn’t going to be happy on this journey without it. Therefore I set to and after removing two stubbornly steel-to-aluminium bonded screws with the aid of a drill, I am now enjoying the prospect of cycling to Richmond on a gloriously sunny London day.
Cycling is my favourite transport.