two wheels good

The saga of my bicycle continues (the story started 22 years ago with my 21st Birthday gift so it's a fair bet that it's going to run for a while yet). I got involved in a three-way bicycle / pavement / gate argument after I tried to avoid the cattle grid at the Comhairle entrance (I've still got a scar on my elbow, the bicycle was a bit poorly and the gate's seem better days so I think we'll have to say that the pavement won). The next day the derailleur fell out of my bicycle halfway into work. The rear dropout has split (obviously it took a fair bit of google action to check what it was actually called - I kept having to refer to the problem as "the axle-holding bit at the back is buggered") and the bicycle is now resting with the only bicycle shop in the Uists (Rohan bicycles) which is run by one of the most hesitant men I've ever met. I had to physically force him to take the bicycle away: it needs welding and, while it may be difficult for him to find someone to fix it, it's completely impossible for me.

After the grand breakdown I came up with a different solution each week: week one was getting the bicycle fixed (no local welders presented themselves so I reckon it'll have to wait 'til I next drive down to Glasgow in December? January? August??); week two was getting Mr Rohan to find a bicycle from his existing stock that I could use (my request disappeared into a silence at his end of the phoneline and he eventually suggested that, since he'd put all his cycles away for the season - who knew that bicycles were like swallows and basking sharks, just here for the summer - it might be just too difficult for him to actually sell something); week three was getting a bicycle through 'cycle-to-work' (this started off really hopefully with an application form on the website and everything, alas the gentleman up in Stornoway who actually has to administer it proved almost as hesitant as Mr-Uist-Bicycles and it turned out that, after I'd waited two weeks before chasing, it would take 'two or three weeks' to set up a new supplier on the system - this was before he'd even noticed that I was only employed on a 12-month contract, one month of which had already passed); week six was getting a bicycle from the existing Comhairle supplier in Stornoway (on the positive side I got to make another entry into my forthcoming guidebook "hesitant men of the western isles" but on the practical side he failed to call me back to let me know if he could get a fancyish women's trek bicycle for me - and this was before we got into the tricky "shipping it to Uist" stuff); week seven saw me call up Evans Cycles and order a Specialized Dolce bicycle (£150 more expensive than it would have been 3 weeks ago: aaarrgghh). I ordered it on the Tuesday and it arrived on Friday: I got the saddle sorted on Saturday and hit the road. In general Uist has coped well with my distinctive cyclewear (pale green legs, pudgy green thighs in black lycra, pink gloves and a knitted bunnet). Since it's a fancy dancy road bike I'm not sure how it (and me) will cope with the wet (and ice and wind ...) but it's looking lovely so far.

Saturday was a trip down to Creagorry (admiring glances aplenty) and today I went off to the east where I met Donald Macdonald out on his newly-enlarged croft at the edge of Eilean Floddagh. He suggested I have a look round his self-catering thatched cottage tigh curstaig which features as a fine backdrop for the new dolce. Remember, it's all about the bike.