The Accidental Cyclist

The Accidental Cyclist Read Free

Book: The Accidental Cyclist Read Free
Author: Dennis Rink
Tags: Coming of Age, London, Cycling, Bicycle, ageless, london travel
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times on the oversized springs that
formed the suspension, and the bicycle was brought to a juddering
halt.
    Unimpressed, the small crowd
turned away from him, and directed their attention back to the
multicoloured racer in the centre of the group, and the main
protagonists.
    The Leader said: “Wanna ride
it?”
    It took Icarus a few moments
before he realised that he was being addressed. “I don’t ride,” he
replied. The thought of riding such a beautiful machine – or any
machine, come to think of it – had never entered his head. The bike
was there to be viewed, admired, but to ride it … the idea had
never occurred to him.
    “Don’t ride or can’t ride?” The
Leader mocked.
    “My mother won’t let me ride –
she says it’s dangerous.”
    They all laughed. Scarhead, on
his oversized mountain bike, had returned to the crowd, wondering
why the other boys weren’t impressed by his wheelie.
    “Well,” said The Leader, “just
give it a go.”
    Like an adolescent noticing a
girl for the first time, Icarus felt that sudden tug of attraction,
the desire to do something he had never done before. But his mother
was nagging at his shoulder, her warnings surging into his head,
scrambling his thoughts.
    “I can’t,” he gabbled, grasping
for some reason that might save him from the unknown. “My mother
says that potholes grab at wheels as they go over, and eat them
up.”
    “What rot,” sneered The Leader,
to a chorus of snorts and guffaws.
    “You’re crazy,” said Scarhead.
“Watch this.” He pointed his mountain bike towards a grassy knoll
just in front of them, where there was a small hole in the
ground.
    “Stop,” shouted Icarus, but he
was too late.
    The boys were all laughing at
Icarus’s dismay as they watched the bike roll towards the pothole.
As he was about to pass over the dent in the ground, Scarhead
pedalled down hard, at the same time pulling up the front wheel as
he had done before. He appeared to have cleared the pothole when,
almost in slow motion, the front wheel was sucked down into the
ground, disappearing almost completely. Boy and bike swivelled in
unison over the fulcrum that was the front axle. Midway through the
arc Scarhead released his hold on the bike, which continued its
passage to thud onto the grass, while the boy sailed on head-first
through the air. As he approached the landing, Scarhead tucked his
misshapen skull down to his chest, performed an acrobatic double
forwards roll and landed sitting on his backside, facing away from
the trapped bike, looking slightly puzzled.
    He turned round to see his bike
spewed out of the pothole. He could have sworn, which is something
he did quite often, that at that moment he heard a soft, earthy
belch. Icarus ran over to the boy, then to the bike. The boy
appeared to be okay but the bike’s front wheel was buckled, the
tyre missing.
    “See,” said Icarus, “I told you
so.” He looked sternly at the others. They all looked slightly
shaken, their earlier swagger melting in the hot afternoon sun.
    “It was just a fluke,” said The
Leader, but he did not look quite so certain.
    Scarhead finally got to his feet
and walked over to his bike. “My Dad’ll kill me,” he said, over and
over. “My Dad’ll kill me.”
    “You should have been wearing a
helmet,” said Icarus. “You could have been seriously injured.”
    “How do you think he did his
head in before?” said Shorty.
    After some tut-tutting and
commiserating the group’s interest in Scarhead evaporated and their
attention refocused on the stolen bicycle.
    “So,” The Leader asked Icarus,
“you’ve really never ridden a bicycle?”
    “No.”
    “Not even sat on one?”
    “Nope.”
    “You gotta at least try sitting
on it,” said The Leader. “Just swing your leg over the crossbar …”
Icarus felt a shudder run through his body at the sound of that
word, “… but be careful that you don’t crack your nuts – the
saddle’s sharp as a knife.”
    The Leader

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