Embarrassing Moments (bike)
Over the years you build up a clutch of embarrassing moments or events.
An early one I recall was with my relatively new bike (bicycle), when we were younger we always yearned for a new bike, but had to make do with an old one cobbled together from the good bits of other bikes, some of which were recovered from a pit hole at the side of the airfield, where the RAF dumped there unwanted or unusable bikes. I must say here that the pit was full of water, and we had to go with a rope and a home made grappling hook.
Some of the bikes we recovered had better wheels and sometimes a good chain and seat than what we were using, so our highbred bikes were so called cobbled together.
It was not till after I left school and started earning a wage that I persuaded my parents that I aught to splash out on a new bike. This they sanctioned and was now proud owner of a Raleigh bike with three speed hub gears. It was kept clean and not used on cattle droving, (where we over took galloping stock on our old bikes down the main road in order to turn them into the correct fields). It was not used to go scrambling through woods and fields and ditches, it was only used for serious cycling.
I had had this bike for two years or more, when I was asked to move a tractor and its silage trailer from our home farm to Church Farm at the other end of the village, so the bike was deposited into the back of the trailer and carefully laid on its side so as not to damage or scratch it. Of course it got forgotten and within a few minutes the trailer was filled with a full load of three tons of grass, and then tipped over an eight foot drop into the empty clamp. ( without me knowing , this had the effect of shortening the bike by about two foot) I was working the buck rake and ran backward at speed into the load to open it up then proceeded to stack the grass until this one buck rake full had part of a twisted wheel protruding from the grass, on further investigation it dawned on me what had happened. It was my New Bike, my pride and joy, one of the first purchases I had ever made. On recovering it, there was not a straight bar left all, it had been crumpled, the best demolition job I had ever done; and not done a better job of destruction in all the sixty years since. I hid it and dare not tell anyone. I was overcome with embarrassment, as the men, (four of them) and my brothers, working on the farm would rib me mercilessly.
It was quite a few years before I admitted as to what had happened to it, and it remained hidden most of that time, I cringed every time I thought about it.
This is how I would describe the sort of bikes our gang of village lads rode.
I had a Good Old Bike
Remember years ago, when I had a good old bike,
Its mud guards loose and rattled, a new one I would like,
The brakes were none existent, and rims they had a dent,
And wobbled as I rode it, and the wheels they were bent.
The seat was ripped and torn, springs were showing through,
A Saddle bag was hanging, off two little straps askew,
It had a carrier on the back, with long and snappy spring,
A clip to hold my jacket down, save tying it on with string.
Countryman
The Puncture Outfit
I had a puncture outfit, in a tin four inches long,
It had a pack of patches; they didn't look very strong,
A tube of tyre solution, there to glue the patches down,
Sand paper to roughen, and talc in glue it turned brown.
I often had a puncture, when I went over spike or thorn,
Turned it upside down to find, the tyre is well worn,
Off to fetch two table spoons, out of the kitchen draw,
Just to use as tyre leavers, see that mother never saw.
The tyre off the spoons they bent, muck and dirt abound,
Pulling out the inner tube, the hole it must be found,
Clean it up and roughen, peel the patch and stick right on,
Blow it up, only to find, we've only got another one.
Tyre mended blown up hard, now to have some fun,
Standing on the peddles hard, make the old hens run,
Up a hedge bank down a track, riding through the wood,
Good job it's just an old one, sliding through the mud.
Countryman
What breaks in a moment may take years to mend
Swedish proverb