The bike

This is Mr Bike his-self, my own bicycle:

Mine came with two pedals...

A Giant Escape M2, in stealth-bomber black. A hybrid bike, though closer in spirit to the classic no-suspension mountain bikes of the nineties than most, more road-oriented, hybrids. I bought it courtesy of the cyclescheme for a mere £300 (from Putney Cycles - I was living in London at the time) along with a heavyweight Abus lock, Cateye lights and cheery black helmet.

I've added a Topeak Super Tourist rack, with its handy plug'n'play action. The standard-issue Maxxis Detonator tyres were swapped in fairly short order for Schwalbe Marathon Plus puncture-proof marvels. The only other adjustment has been to swap the original 11-32 rear cassette to a more road-ish 12-25 - though to be honest, I rarely stray beyond using 5 or so of the 27 gear combinations; I don't have a hilly commute. Also, the pedal reflectors have chosen to remove themselves, for reasons unknown.

Since picking it up in 2009, pretty much exactly three years ago, I've covered somewhere in the region of 8,000 miles, the lion's share of which came over the last twelve months. As well as the daily commute, it's gone down the Thames, over the Pennines and across Snowdonia, in addition to multitudinous forays into Cheshire and innumerable intra-Mancunian trips. It's comfortable on tarmac and on trails of varying quality - mud and ice have been dealt with; the only "you shall not pass" substance has been sand. And it's held up pretty well: the only persistent problems have been the disc breaks (probably too cheap a bike to have discs, but there you go) and my apparent inability to keep a chain in decent working order for more than a couple of months at a time. The saddle is also slowly disintegrating, and I recently noticed a kink in one of the spokes.

For all its versatility, there are some big downsides. First off, it's pretty heavy. Granted, the lock and the rack (and all the stuff I stick in the luggage) add to it, as do the tyres, but nonetheless, it's still quite an effort to heft it out of the cellar. Secondly, the ride is pretty rough. Flying down a hillside on the ill-maintained byways of North Cheshire, you feel like you're rattling your teeth out. By comparison, my housemate's Specialized Allez rides like a hovercraft. Finally, bless it, it's certainly an exercise in function over form; which is a kind way of saying that it's not particularly aesthetically appealing

Felix rides a Specialized Allez; armour, Comme Des Garçons; helmet, model's own.

So I must admit, my eye is wandering... my employers offer an interest-free bike loan which has seen me making covetous forays onto bikeshop websites to see what's on offer, but I'll save that for another post. Suffice to say that, even if I move on, I'll always have a tender spot for the Giant, which has been my road into the healthy lifestyle and Zen-like meditative wonders of cycling.

I'd been out of the game for over ten years, pretty much since heading off to university in 1999. The return to pedal-power came largely in an effort to improve my general health and counteract my (fairly substantial) weight gain. But it wasn't the first, of course. The predecessors include:

Trek 800, circa 1995 (with grip-shift gears, deep metallic purple)
A Raleigh something-or-other MTB, circa 1991 (white and purple-y pink, with a then-dizzying 15 speeds)
A white BMX with spokey-dokeys, circa 1987
A red bike with stabilisers, circa 1985

The real deal...

The next stop will be something a bit closer to a road bike, possible made of steel, probably with fewer gears. Keep watching.