Hire a Post Office bike – Best bike birthday present

It was my ‘bike birthday’ last weekend, not quite my actual birthday, but an opportunity for the Malmesbury Peloton to get together for a ride and some lunch. I’d been given some idea of the route, so pulled out the road bike and donned my lycra ready for 10.30, only to find Ian arrive astride his mountain bike and wearing a Hawaiian shirt – I suspected that this may not be a ‘normal’ ride.

Over the next few minutes the Peloton appeared, all in loud shirts, but at least they’d chosen road bikes… then Mike appeared on my replacement steed for the day… a Post Office bike!

PO-Bike-Mike

What a fantastic idea, chapeau chaps, a stroke of brilliance.

We’ve had a good look at the old Post Office bikes at Jolerider in Tetbury, and there was always a small seed of an idea that said “one of those would be a great town/pub bike”.

Bearing in mind that it exactly a year ago when Ian, Mike and myself ventured out to the Verderas Trail in the Forest Of Dean – a trip that should have been perfect, but ended up with me in Gloucester Hospital. Four hours and 32 stitches in my chin later we were very late back for a big family party and the whole incident has now gone down in local folklore. So shortly after the Post Office bike arrived, my cliipie shoes had been swapped for trainers, my knees and elbows wrapped in skateboards pads and roadside beacon strapped to my head… no hospital visits were allowed this year!

PO-Bike-Pete

We were almost ready for the off, so a Malmesbury Peloton team photo was required…

Malmesbury Peloton
Malmesbury Peloton

Left to right… many thanks to… Ian, Dunc, Neil, Iain, Neil, yours truly, Mike, Pete and Al.

Thanks also to Daniel and Simon who made it to the Vinetree via a less arduous cycle ride… and a huge thumbs up to my son, Louis, who thought this bunch of middle-aged bikers were off for a short local ride when he decided to join us, and not the 30+ miles that it turned int… Chapeau Louis!

Thirty five miles later:

1 – We’d shared the bike…

2 – We all wanted a Post Office bike…

3 – Had all confirmed that a Sturmey-Archer three-speed hub actually means two gears…

4 – We’d decided that Post men must be fit as butcher’s dogs…

5 – You can fit more than twelve bottles of Doombar in a Post Office bike tray… but the steering gets a tad wonky and and the whole lot jumps in the air if you hit a big bump.

It was great, brilliant, special, fantastic day that will stay with me for a very long time… and for any cyclists out there looking for a different sort of ride, I strongly recommend the Post Office bike!!

 

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