Wednesday, 9 March 2016

Stair Rods

It was raining today. As my late mother would put it: stair-rods. It was raining stair-rods!! This was going to test both the bike and my mettle.

In the past, when I used to cycle to work on my other bike, I cycled in rain, snow, sun, wind and thunder. Sometimes on the same journey!! So I had the gear.

As the great Sir Ranulph Fiennes might say: “It’s not bad weather, it’s only inappropriate clothing.”

I togged up and set off. I had forgotten how it was to cycle in heavy rain and wind. It was wet and cold. Still the first leg of the journey (to the station) is met with a reasonably steep, but not long, hill. This warms up the body sufficiently to be able to stand on the open platform and brave the inclement weather, without too much discomfort.

The train arrives and I’m on, bike folded and I’m seated.

There’s a little trick to those who have folding bikes, that the rest of the commuting community don’t have – a seat when ever you want. The Bickerton folds in such a way that the seat post rests on the floor. Thus the seat can actually act as a seat in itself (useful if the wait for the train is extended beyond five minutes or so). One this occasion though, I’m on the train seat.

Once I arrive at NSS, it doesn’t take long to be cycling up Corporation Street on my way to work.

Remember the building works I motioned previously? The ones where Birmingham City Centre is building a new tram system? A cautionary tale ensues (two, in fact).

Cautionary Tale #1 - When I was a lot younger (forty plus years younger) we lived in an area where residual tram lines were still in place at the bus terminus. Although there was no tram, the local authorities didn’t see it appropriate to completely remove the, now disused, tram lines that were there previously. Perhaps it was a boundary dispute (after all the tramlines did cross through two boundaries). Anyway, cycling along that stretch required extra concentration, because if one didn’t, one’s bicycle wheel would get caught in the tram line and there’d be trouble. As it happens, in all the five or so years I used that section, this only happened to me the once – Phew! Another, more serious incident, is worth the telling.

Cautionary Tale #2 – (the names of characters have been changed to protect the innocent). In the 1970s we (and I mean we – even the boys) used to wear what was termed at the time as platform shoes. So I’m meandering near the tram lines with my platforms, when across the road I spot her – Judy X (a particularly lovely local girl, who I would not have the courage to even say ‘hello’ to, let alone ask out – ah being 14, eh?). So rather than meander I strut (this was before Saturday Night Fever) hoping that she would notice me. Well she might well have done. Just after I got my platform shoes caught in the tram lines and ended up doing ‘a Pope’ (kissing the floor). A quick get up and look around. Did anyone notice? I think I got away with it.


So if you’re ever wearing platform shoes on a night out in Birmingham City Centre; meander, don’t strut.

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