So the Tour de France starts on Saturday in Bilbao, amid some concern about safety after the death of Gino Mäder who crashed while descending at high speed in the Tour de Suisse on 16 June. Coming down a mild slope at speed on my bike is frightening enough for me and whenever I watch the racing cyclists hurtling down slopes, especially with dangerous bends, my heart is in my mouth. Sometimes it’s just amusing as a rider fails to make the turn and ends up in some farmer’s filed or barn instead. When they come off their bikes though their lycra outfits give little protection against the road surfaces. Motorcyclists wear leathers for that very reason.
When I see the peloton all bunched up together, all too close for comfort, all jostling for space, I am reminded of Djamolodine Abdoujaparov, from Uzbekistan, known as the “Tashkent Terror”, whom I saw on many occasions - on television of course, not on the actual road. He always seemed to be all elbows and knees, both of those joints thrashing about making room for him to get through any obstacles in his way, his bike wobbling from side to side. How he did not cause more crashes I do not know.
The only other person I ever saw cycle in a similar fashion was my own father, a much more sedate and calm cyclist, it must be said. He did, however, cycle with his knees sticking out, the consequence possibly of years of riding with one small child or another perched somewhat precariously on a makeshift seat on his crossbar. This was, of course, before we all started wearing cycle helmets, and in an age when the amount of traffic generally on the roads was considerably smaller than it is now. Such a seat was a far cry from the bike seats you can now fix on your bike to carry a child and altogether different from the kind of thing described in this article - not so much a bicycle with trailer as a kind of bike train, the latest thing in eco-friendly ways to take your children to school.
My father would also manage to carry quite large baskets of fruits and vegetables from his allotment, dangling rather dangerously from his handlebars. (This is why I am so fussy about strawberries - I was so spoilt by the excellent strawberries he grew that it is rare for me to find shop-bought varieties to my satisfaction and why I never buy them out of season.) When I see photos of whole families piled onto mopeds or Vespa motor scooters, laden with bags of goodness only knows what I think of my father returning from his allotment with bags and baskets of goodies.
Ah! nostalgia!
Here’s a looking-back-at-how-things-used-to-be post that I found this morning:
“A pensioner said young people need to "stop whinging" and "work harder" to pay their mortgages like people did in the old days.
Brian Meek, 76, said he and wife Rosemary, 70, put in extra hours at weekends and evenings when interest rates soared in the late 70s. The couple barely saw each other as they juggled his long shifts in engineering and hers in the civil service around their growing family to pay for their home.
Brian believes homeowners should knuckle down to get through the current interest-rate hikes. Brian said: "We just did whatever we had to so we could keep paying our mortgage”. “
Fine! Everyone needs to work harder! Of course, back in the seventies mortgage payments were not a big as they are now and the price of houses was more in line with what most us earned. It’s easy to forget that things are rather out of proportion, especially for the likes of Brian Meek, 76, whose mortgage was probably paid off long ago.
Rishi Sunak has a similar sort of message about mortgages and told Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: "I want people to be reassured that we've got to hold our nerve, stick to the plan and we will get through this."
Easy to say if you have lots of money!
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment