I got my last road bike a few years after the demise of the
bike purchased with the proceeds of my fairly short lived paper run that itself
replaced the one stolen by the vicious roaming street gangs of Sydney’s upper
North Shore.
For those not familiar with Sydney I should perhaps make it clear that the vicious roaming street gangs of Sydney’s upper North Shore were neither vicious, roaming or deserving of the descriptor ‘gang’ when compared to almost any other group of youths up to and including a mildly mischievous scout pack.
For those not familiar with Sydney I should perhaps make it clear that the vicious roaming street gangs of Sydney’s upper North Shore were neither vicious, roaming or deserving of the descriptor ‘gang’ when compared to almost any other group of youths up to and including a mildly mischievous scout pack.
But they still stole my bike dammit.
In what should possibly be a warning given my current plans,
I had intended to strip down the replacement bicycle then repaint and rebuild
it, but gave up after 3 attempts to strip the paint failed miserably and I
couldn’t figure out how to remove the cranks. I’m sure that will not be a
problem this time as my current frame is already beautifully painted, does not
require the removal of anything and unlike 1987 I now have the limitless ‘how
to’ resource that is YouTube.
It was a grey Miyata that I purchased for I think about
$500.00 (a record for me at the time) from a bike shop in Thornleigh. It got
quite the work out. For starters, this was a period in my life when I was out
of school and lacking a vehicle for at least some of the time so it was pretty
much the go to option.
It went with me to Canberra (where I spent a very hectic 12
months failing to be moulded into a leader of men) a town wonderfully suited to
travel on a bike given its outstanding flatness and nice wide roads.
Once it became clear to me that I was perhaps not suited at that time in my life to being an officer in the Royal Australian Army (helped along by my Commanding Officer’s blunt assessment that I was deficient in 13 out of 13 Leadership Qualities....and don’t ask me what they were because I cannot remember....maybe one was memory related?) and I resigned, it ended up in the shed for a couple of years while I plied my trade as a motorbike courier.
Once it became clear to me that I was perhaps not suited at that time in my life to being an officer in the Royal Australian Army (helped along by my Commanding Officer’s blunt assessment that I was deficient in 13 out of 13 Leadership Qualities....and don’t ask me what they were because I cannot remember....maybe one was memory related?) and I resigned, it ended up in the shed for a couple of years while I plied my trade as a motorbike courier.
As brilliant as that job was (and it was pretty good), inevitably,
a combination of gentle parental questioning (‘Yes, but it’s not really a
career is it?) and the steady mechanical decline of my motorbike, led to the
inescapable conclusion that a proper job should at some point be worked
towards. For reasons I am still not entirely clear on (but that may have had
something to do with girls) that job turned out to be Nursing.
The motorbike made it about 6 months into my first year of
Uni before it bought the farm and it was back on the (push) bike for me.
Totally lacking my own motorised transport and a good 20kms
from the University, this was my first Golden Age of riding. Even when I took
the train for part of it I was getting in 10 or so kilometres a day (or walking
it). Up and down the Pacific Highway in really quite serious traffic, I could
not be stopped (including quite a few occasions, possibly involving University
levels of alcohol when I really should have been).
It was a good bike. The first that I paid for entirely by
myself. And it served me well.
I feel kind of guilty therefore that I have absolutely no
idea what happened to it.
Next: Round bits. Seaty Bits.
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