The things we do for our women

Bikes. I've owned a lot of bikes in the past. I was thinking about it the other day and realised I've owned nine 'proper' bikes in my life. By proper, I don't mean trikes or any kiddy shite like that. All proper bikes. With wheel. And brakes. Most of the time at least. From what I can remember, the list goes a little like this

• A Raleigh kids bike. Blue with spongy padding on the top tube and the handlebars. I don't remember the model though. I don't know what happened to this one.


• Another Raleigh. This time some bright green thing with black disk wheels. Not proper disk wheels though. Just a disk covering the spokes. And only on the back if I remember correctly. This got passed onto my brother I think.


• An Apollo. It was my proper adult size bike. But it was bright orange. And I mean bright. You couldn't look straight at it for too long else your eyes would melt. It was also my first (but not my last) bike to be stolen from my parents shed.


• Back on the Raleigh's, this time with a Kalamunda. 14.5" frame. Silver. And with suspension forks. My first suspension forks. Also got nicked from the shed.


• A dark green full suspension Raleigh Max that I bought from a kid down the street. I rode the crap out of that bike. Was great for downhilling at the time. That one got stolen from the shed too. It was also when we decided to stop leaving bikes in the shed.


• Now, I don't remember what make my next one was, but I remember it was dark blue and had yellow RST 281 forks. I loved that bike. It got stolen from outside of the main shopping centre in Burton.


• Another Raleigh Max, the Max 2, with a Y-frame. Very light and easy to ride. Was the first bike I had in London. Was also the first bike I had stolen in London. It happened the day one of my old housemates was moving out of the Herne Hill flat. I still blame her for it.


• My low-ride chopper. Potentially my coolest bike so far. Based on a Schwinn Stingray I custom built and custom painted it, and it awesome to ride. That also got stolen from my flat in Herne Hill the day I moved to Romford.


• My current ride, a Specialized Cirrus Sport 2006. Incredibly light as has saved me a fortune on travel cards. To cut a long story short I got it for free as someone was giving it away. It's not been stolen yet either.

I've already planned my summer upgrade (as / when I can afford it) and want to get a Specialized Langster Monaco 2009. It's very swanky. Carbon fibre and the choice of fixed or free wheel. Niiice.

They've been my rides, but currently in my shed I also have these two little numbers (double click to enlarge).

The reason that I have them is that I now seem to be getting them to order. Both Mazz and her housemate have both been after one, so I've been keeping my eye out for freebies and managed to acquire them both for no cost, which is nice.

Getting onto the point about this blog; sometimes, even getting a bike for free for someone still isn't enough - not for women anyway. The bike, albeit fine, is "just not red enough", so now I'm using the fact that I've been working on bikes pretty much my entire life to dismantle the shopper style one above, strip all of the paint off and then base, coat in "BMW flame red" and then lacquer before rebuilding it all again. So today I've been out in the garden all day up to my elbows in Allen keys and NitroMors taking it apart and stripping the paint. It's a bit of a mission, but fortunately I actually like playing with these things, and the gear / brake system on this one was not one I'd seen before so was actually a bit of a challenge.

I'll let you know how I get on with what I'm now calling "Bike Mod Project 2"; if you give a crap that is.