I’ve received a few deliveries of late, the finishing
touches, I think (and hope) for my appropriate bicycle.
First up were the replacement gloves – a pair of
white Mavic Espoir ‘everyday race gloves’ offering
‘progressive cushioning’. They only cost me £13.30 - £3.69 less than the Altura gloves they replaced. I tried to
order them on-line at the already reduced rate of £14.00 but the website
wouldn’t process my order. I emailed
Hargroves cycles, not to demur but to question whether their website was at
fault and if there was an alternative means by which I could complete the
transaction. They took it as a
complaint, none the less, and offered me a 5% discount on my order by way of
recompense.
I’d been unsure as to what
size I should take – medium or large – after trying both on in Cycle Surgery
with inconclusive results. Hargroves
only had medium and small in stock so the prospect of saving £6.00 (they retaill at £20) settled it. The medium seems fine, the elasticated top
portion of the glove allowing for a variable fit.
Next to arrive were a pair of white leather Zefal
‘Christophe’ toe straps. If you don’t
understand why I parted with £9.99 for these, or if your reaction to them is a
shrug of indifference, then I doubt you’ve reaped much reward from reading An Appropriate Bicycle.
Practically speaking, I bought them because leather
toe straps are far more effective than the nylon banding I’ve been making do
with – you should at least comprehend that.
Leather holds its shape better, which can be of great benefit when
re-engaging one’s foot with the toe clip after standing around at traffic
lights. Nylon is slack by comparison and
more vulnerable to snagging.
The Romani did actually come with leather straps
already attached but they were black, well-worn strips, and the metal fasteners
marred with rust. The Carlos had come
with black toe straps, too, and I’d discovered that when wet they would make
quite a mess of my shoes (the dye would rub off, presumably). So I needed new straps to ensure the fluidity
of my ride and to save spoiling my footwear.
Further, I thought it might be good idea to tie in the colour of my toe straps
with the colour of my bar-tape.
£9.99 is actually about as cheap as you’re going to
get for genuine leather straps, although they were reduced by a couple of
quid. It wasn’t just a question of
price, mind: these Zefal straps have the word christophe printed upon them in
the most pleasing of fonts. It’s like
that little M for Mavic insignia on my jacket and new gloves, or the engraved
detailing on my bike’s handlebars, and the Cinelli
head badge that features on the clasp of the handlebar stem: small details that
make all the difference. I don’t even
like branding as a rule, but certain names and ensigns leave their mark: Fred
Perry’s laurel wreath, Adidas’s original trefoil logo, Levi’s red tab, and now
Zefal’s christophe.
And who or what is christophe anyway?
The blurb on the back of the packaging tells me he was Eugene
Christophe, a French cyclist who purportedly invented the toe clip. He entered into business with a company
called Poutrait Morin, who later changed their name to Zefal, and these straps
now bear his name as something of a tribute.
When I went to fit my new straps to my toe clips I
noticed that they too bore the legend ‘Christophe’. Isn’t that a wonderful thing?
Despite my ambivalence towards eyewear it is obvious that
glasses have a place in cycling, if only to stop bugs and pollen from getting in
one’s eyes. As a hay-fever sufferer, the
route the London to Brighton takes – through meadows and fields – has a nasty
potential. Aside from dosing up on
antihistamines – which by no means guarantees a result – the best precaution I
can take against such an “attack” is to invest in some shades.
I already
have a pair of shades – two, in fact – but not the sort that “wrap around” the
face to ensure maximum coverage. The
cheapest I could find in-store – at Evans Cycles for £29.99 – was the Endura
Shark glasses set – with interchangeable lenses and everything! They seemed okay but I really wasn’t looking
to spend that much. You might think, ‘Why
skimp on something like that, especially what with your hay-fever and all?’ We’ve already established that I don’t much like
wearing sunglasses, and the British weather will hardly dictate I need to very
often. But on top of that, the shape of my
nose isn’t conducive to the wearing of eyewear – most glasses sit too high on
my face and it will be uncomfortable and it will look silly. So unless the Endura Sharks were a perfect
fit – which they weren’t – then what would be the point in parting with that
much money for them? (Not that the price
would be considered expensive by your seasoned cyclist’s standards; some people
will pay three figure sums for a pair of Oakleys.)
I was
almost resigned to buying a specific pair from Marks and Sparks, with an
accommodating bridge, but I didn’t like their imitation carbon fibre frame effect. Then, after stopping by the Hounslow branch
of Halfords on one of my rides, I came across Foster Grant’s Ironman
range. Fairly innocuous looking shades,
they sat quite well upon the ridge of my nose.
At £26 a pair I still thought the price a little steep (they
didn’t even come with interchangeable lenses) but my internet based research
unearthed yet another on-line discount – direct from Foster Grant themself –
and I purchased the very same model for £17.42.
Finally, I had to deal with the helmet issue. Actually, I bought a helmet some time ago but
I don’t like talking about it. As
helmets go it’s actually not too bad: a Uvex i-vo, in white, weighing in at
225g, and of German origin. What’s more,
I picked it up for £29.99 (including postage) reduced from £44.99 (not
including postage) and it’s not uncomfortable either. But it does look awfully wide sat upon head,
and I’ve been trying to sell the thing with a view to replacing it with either a Louis
Garneau Sharp or a Giro Savant, both retailing at around £60 (although the Giro
can certainly be found cheaper if you shop around) and helmets that seem to fit
me just that little better.
No takers as yet for the Uvex, despite the “watchers”
sniffing around on eBay. If it doesn’t
sell before the London to Brighton then I’ll just have to settle with what I’ve
got.
And talking of buying things first and then impatiently
waiting for a sale to materialise, I finally got shot of the Carlos. That might seem a ruthless way of putting it,
given the time we spent together, but after: bumping the advert up on Gumtree a
total of 10 times over a period of at least six weeks; paying a pound to
advertise it on a website called Preowned Cycles; giving it a go on the
Retrobike forums and not receiving even the slightest bit of interest, despite
a statistic informing me that 400-odd people had taken a look; having two
people meet me to view the bike, only for both of them to tell me they’d need
to ‘have a think about it’ and, after having thought about it, apparently
deciding against it, I’d started to become rather sick of the sight of that
bike still parked up in my hallway.
So when a
guy from Tunbridge Wells called me on the Saturday and told me he was prepared
to drive to West London on the Sunday, I was confident that it would be a case
of third time lucky. I knew Carlos was a
nice looking bike – most of my friends prefer it to the Romani – and I
figured that anybody prepared to travel from one side of London to the other was
of serious intent.
And so it
came to pass and he paid the current asking price of £325 without the mere hint
of a quibble – this young man who was off to Oxford University in the autumn,
with an accent that suggested he would not be out of place there. I don’t think money was an issue for The Guy
From Tunbridge Wells, but when he gets to Oxford with Carlos in tow I think
he’ll appreciate what an appropriate bicycle he now has in his possession.
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