I recently acquired a folding bicycle. With such a piece of apparatus I would be afforded the luxury of being able to board rush hour trains without being lynched by a baying mob of commuters, just dying to compliment their morning coffee with a public butchering.

You can see it in their eyes. The commuting set, particulalry those who use the train, are invariably angry, angry people. They want blood. They want suffering. They are the desparate and the depraved and the downright sadistic of the modern world.

Enter the cyclist; he with the Lycra and the 27C wheels and the ridiculous footwear. He is more than fair game. His assailants, who usually come in the form of repulsive strumpets, boasting breasts down to their knees and arses the size of Scunthorpe, will snarl and expectorate and wheeze in the direction of our lowly biker until he is forced to yield and alight at the next stop. He shakes his fist at the carriage as it trundles towards the horizon, trembling under the weight of its fat and irritable cargo.

A folding cycle is subsequently purchased - and the fuckers will rue the day.

I clambered aboard a South-Western vessel which would plough a furrow through suburban London and up to Clapham Junction. From there a short cycle would ensue, a day's work would be done, and the entire journey would be replicated in reverse.

My little Brompton, or Barbara, such is her name, sat dicreetly in the aisle.



Now, for her plentiful strengths, Barbara certainly isn't without flaw. Perhaps the most predominant being that she has a canny knack of making her owner look like a total fucking idiot. A bicycle so small with a rider so large may elicit robust sniggers from the naysayers, and it was indeed true that whilst piloting Babs through the urban sprawl it looked like I was trying to consume her through my buttocks. Yet she is suprisingly resilient and we arrived at the office without hinderance.

The return leg on the other hand was somewhat more irksome.

Exhibit A, if I may...



How Babs and I negotiated that little lot without inadvertantly snapping a pedal off in someone's arse is anyone's guess.