I went for my usual Saturday morning bike ride this morning, and stopped in Shirley to pick up a few supplies. As I was unlocking Henry, a couple came up and started admiring him.
“That’s a beauty. Do you mind me asking how much it cost?”
After he’d recovered from the shock, we got chatting. Eric and Hinda had been avid cyclists in their youth and had owned a tandem in the 1940s, which they rode everywhere. They were amazed with the similarities between the bike they’d owned and Henry – right down to the same brand of hub gears.
Eric was particularly impressed with the bell. He had a couple of goes with it and it clearly brought back so many happy memories.
We chatted about bikes and our respective adventures for about quarter of an hour right there on the street. Hinda told of how they had been run off the road by a coach once, and they’d had to throw themselves and the bike to the ground in order to avoid being run over. Tandems have quite a wide turning circle, apparently – and you need to give them a lot more room.
They’d saved up for ages for their tandem – £40 at the time, and it was the Rolls Royce of bikes – but they ended up passing it on when Hinda became pregnant with their first child. That was a while ago. They’ll both be 80 within the next year or so.
Really lovely couple – and so nice to live somewhere you can just chat in the street with complete strangers like that. I love that Henry is more than just a bike – he’s a conversation starter, and a link to people’s stories and memories.
That totally made my day.
