Whilst out in Barcelona last trip Christine and I took to borrowing the kids’ bikes and going for rides along the promenade next to Alex’s house. The promenade is probably seven or eight miles long which takes you to the next town, Castelldefels, and after that another promenade for a few miles to Port Ginesta and up into the mountains. We probably cycled about an hour and a half or so in each direction which for two old folks, oops I mean one old folk and a 51 year old Christine, who haven’t been on a bike in forty years I don’t think we did too bad.


Maybe the odd ache in a couple of joints but nothing serious except for the seats. Why do they make mountain bikes with such uncomfortable seats, we were just riding along a concrete path and it was uncomfortable so what it must be like on a mountain I have no idea. Or is it just me, as we get older maybe our bums get more bony but I don’t think I’ll go any further on that line.


Anyway on returning home Christine decides that we should keep up the cycling and bike into Beverley a couple of times a week to help keep fit and to offset the wine we now seem to be drinking every night. So I start to look at what bikes cost to buy and I can’t believe it, I could buy a car for less than some of these bikes. Now I know the real expensive ones are top of the range bikes for serious cyclists and I know we will never become serious cyclists but I also know Christine and her shopping habits. I know that if I loose her in a shop I only need to find the part that sells the most expensive of whatever it is the shop sells and Christine will be there.


So off we go to the bike warehouse and I try to steer her towards the bikes that cost around about £100 but these are apparently not what she wants so she moves up the line past the £150 towards the £200 plus and I begin to get worried. Eventually whilst looking at a bike that costs upwards of £300 she says “these are not the type of bike I want, I want an old second hand Miss Marple bike with a basket on the front”. Second Hand! I’ve never known her do second hand, but if that’s what she wants, who am I to object.


We are now at the second bike shop in Beverley and there appears to be just the thing, ‘sit-up-and-beg’ handlebars, big seat with springs for a comfortable ride, three gears, wire basket on the front and a chain guard to protect her trousers and just to make things better it has a sticker saying £60 on it. After some hard negotiation with the bike man we go away with this bike for £50, a good result or what.





Well I thought it was a good deal until a couple of days later when she arrives back home with a tin of Farrow and Ball green paint saying she needs to customise her bike to create an authentic vintage look. Apparently the colour of the bike clashes with the colour we have painted the outside brickwork on the cottage the Farrow and Ball green is a far better match. But most importantly it seems the new green colour matches the cycling outfit coming from ‘Bikes You Like’ website that has mysteriously appeared on My Favourites on the laptop. She has just finished explaining how much she has saved by buying the paint rather than getting a brand new bike when I notice a new wicker basket with leather straps waiting to replace the wire one..


I once again go through the routine of trying to explain that we haven’t actually saved any money at all we have in fact just spent another £30 so the bike has now cost up £80 and the good deal seems not so good now. I must have a look in her pink Black Book and see whose name is next to the job of ‘paint bike’.


But never-the-less she has her ‘Miss Marple’ bike and she seems quite happy with it so who am I to grumble. Of course that left me needing a bike because, Christine reminded me, we like doing ‘we’ things and going of for rides together was what we needed to do. I just happened to mention this to my brother-in-law Howie and he brings a brand new mountain bike out of his shed. “Only ridden it twice” he says “sticking to the car in future, you can have this one”.







I am now the owner of a lightweight, eighteen gear bike with suspension forks and whatever else mountain bikes have and I notice that Christine is looking a bit like she has come out second best. I have a brand new bike and she has a second hand one in need of a re-paint. Mind you the large seat with springs on her Miss Marple bike soon convinces her that she has the right bike. I think I need to customise my bike as well, I need to change the seat.





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