Und tausend Elefanten brechen aus
A while ago I realised that, if I'm going to cycle safely along roads with people on them (particularly that bit in Reading which lots of pedestrians mistakenly believe is "no cycling") I need a bell.
I am a Serious Cyclist so I went to Tiger, the mysterious Everything Shop in Ealing Broadway, and splashed out £1 on a new bell. Just to underline that I am a Serious Cyclist, it had a dancing elephant on it. Wearing a top hat.
It was a bit cheap and nasty, and turning the bike upside down to fix things did occasionally result in an important spring going spoing and leaving its housing, but it was fun. Way more fun than those black dome affairs that go 'ping'. Mine made a satisfying 'brrrrrrring!' noise.
My bike spends its off time locked outside Reading station. As a sort of barometer of filching, I left the old, unusably knackered-frame fit pump on it - just to see if it vanished. It hasn't, but a few weeks ago I arrived to find that someone had made away with my dancing behatted elephant. Not the bell, mind you, just the little disc on the top with the elephant on it.
So for some weeks I've been riding around with a cheap green bell, with an odd black spodge on it where the elephant used to be fixed on. However, I've finally been spurred into action: I must get a new bell. Yesterday I arrived to find that the whole mechanism (metal case, errant spring, striker and all) had disappeared, leaving me with just a plasticky blue base screwed to the handlebars. The pump remains snugly clipped to the frame.
Time for another trip to Tiger, I think.
I am a Serious Cyclist so I went to Tiger, the mysterious Everything Shop in Ealing Broadway, and splashed out £1 on a new bell. Just to underline that I am a Serious Cyclist, it had a dancing elephant on it. Wearing a top hat.
It was a bit cheap and nasty, and turning the bike upside down to fix things did occasionally result in an important spring going spoing and leaving its housing, but it was fun. Way more fun than those black dome affairs that go 'ping'. Mine made a satisfying 'brrrrrrring!' noise.
My bike spends its off time locked outside Reading station. As a sort of barometer of filching, I left the old, unusably knackered-frame fit pump on it - just to see if it vanished. It hasn't, but a few weeks ago I arrived to find that someone had made away with my dancing behatted elephant. Not the bell, mind you, just the little disc on the top with the elephant on it.
So for some weeks I've been riding around with a cheap green bell, with an odd black spodge on it where the elephant used to be fixed on. However, I've finally been spurred into action: I must get a new bell. Yesterday I arrived to find that the whole mechanism (metal case, errant spring, striker and all) had disappeared, leaving me with just a plasticky blue base screwed to the handlebars. The pump remains snugly clipped to the frame.
Time for another trip to Tiger, I think.