The Bike and Other Stories

Second Sunday in Advent ☍
Geoffrey Armes - 2020-12-06 23:44:22+01:00

Cold. Sun had graced the morning, and with the family I'd walked a Christmas Tree home. But it was time, time for the reckoning. I'd moaned all week about weather and work and reasons not to go out, well, here was the opportunity. True, the clouds were down again and the air dampening by the minute but I had no excuses. The body, if not the bike, needed the attention. I got the layers on, made sure I had all the stuff – bite to eat, juice, tubes, levers, tool, phone, cash, identity documents, one use rubber gloves, you know, the stuff – and no more excuses, left.

Actually felt decent, the wind had turned and was on my tail, pushing me through the silent streets, urging me towards the forest. Arms cold but legs and torso fine, fingers and toes, well fingers and toes are they ever warm on a winter ride? I wondered how many others I would see, this late, this weather, this day.

As I rode, I debated how far I could go. I was late, of course, but had spent much of yesterday muttering about needing a longer one, at least longer than the 30k dashes to which I'd been confined earlier in the week. I was outside now, and things felt different, there was no way I was going down to the bridge, and then back around ebay, whether hammering or spinning, and that was a debate too, I needed to be warm but I didn't particularly want to suffer. Now there's a joke – you want to ride in winter and avoid suffering? That's like telling God you want to be born human but not suffer.

I was kind of getting the pull to head north, through the Siedlung where Jens lives and then back down via the hill. I'd get some distance in in, especially if I returned that way and the wind would be favourable. But, if I was indecisive surely that was a limiting choice, better to head down the Krone to where at the bottom you had choices, like, maybe you would want to do the bridge after all, or something similar. Southward it was, immediately regretted as the wind seemed to head down the rise at the mouth of the Krone, making things, hard. I needed hard.

At the bottom, feeling grim, I fell for the simplest route with the option of a longer return anyway, and promptly got caught on a descent by a guy who almost immediately stood up. Not questioning why as I wanted to ride alone I passed him and pushed on, the steady rhythm of the legs, enough to sweat but not enough to well, suffer. The steady chill of the wind was another matter, hands were not happy but functioning well enough. Just before I hit the hill I heard voices behind and was again overhauled by the same guy, but this time with his colleague in tow. Now I understood why he'd stood up earlier. They passed me, gunning for the hill and I did not feel in any state to do anything about them, even though his colleague, wearing jeans I noted, was already slipping back. Williberg was asserting his authority. I kept pace on the climb, unwilling to suffer, or suffering enough but up top I couldn't help but gain and eventually pass on the undulations below and this time opted to push on, away, quickly. As I did so I noticed the light spraying off the solid water of the lake on the left and realised that was the picture of the day – I'd take it on the way back.

Oh you are coming back this way are you? I questioned myself, a decision seemingly made already by me and for me without my noticing. Hmm.

I kept going, urgent, blindly skipping past Postfenn towards the more brutishly steep but shorter Angerburger Allee. I'd dance up it, right? Wrong, as I turned it was an immediate baulk, and a heavy limbed slog was the method, out the saddle, in, and cars today for some reason passing uncomfortably close. The road bent and steepened, and wind began to course down, threatening to halt me. I've never been stopped on a hill. I've never. I'm getting old. The sky is grey. The clouds are low. The road has flattened. Good. I can rest. There's a car behind, can he pass? No. Better up the pace then. Work. Suffer. Turn the corner and the road is two way and wide, the garage is on the right and I am top of the world, watching the highway traffic stream between Berlin and Spandau. With a decision to make. No decision. Decision made earlier. I'm going back the long way.

I stopped, adjusted my hat the brim of which had been falling forward unrequested and assessed the frozen state of my thumbs before pushing on, wondering for the second time that day if I'd taken the wrong route. There's still time to turn back, I argued but there's a picture to take I'd promised myself. Some driver chose to overtake me at a speed barely quicker than mine as we reached the junction at the bottom, always annoying and in this instance slowed down my turn and then there I was, out the saddle pretend dancing home. Here were the photo angles but the light had gone, the sky thick, the water glum, and the rider needing rhythm out matched the diarist photographer pushed to the hills and the long ride home. Up down round and around gasp for air, tuck on the descent, just keep moving, where is the assistance, in the summer I'd be travelling 10k per hour quicker here, nod to the guy opposite wonder if he is suffering because I am. There's crud caught between the front wheel and the brake again, on this endless damp lumbering drip tank of a debris strewn bike path of a day, heading north, heading home, praying nothing goes wrong because surely I couldn't handle it. Of course you could, it is easy. Don't wanna.

At the top of the Krone it's time to empty the bladder, switch on the lights as long before sun down the darkness has fallen and stretch the leg that has been protesting the heavy weight work of the last 8k or so. Getting older. Don't want to ride with anyone now, as I don't want to compete and want to stop when I need to do so without bugging others. I grab a small stick, shove some of the debris out and then a guy on a mountain bike descends from the trails just ahead of where I've pulled over.

“Is everything well?” quoth he, and of course it is but I have to clean up the bike here and he laughs and says yes he has to give his a good scrub, pointing to the mud and tree debris, well, it's a mountain bike say I, no wonder and he admires my bike and seems to know more about it than I do. The 2006 model? he asks. And yeah, winter, cold, and bike cleaning, part of it right, to be expected? I can only agree then he wishes me a cheery second Sunday of Advent and moves on, and I get to pee.

As I ride off, lights flashing, I think, oh that was Jens, surely. Or not? I'll (probably) never know.

Later that evening, snow hissed then fluttered its kiss on the ground and rooves of Berlin, silenced the traffic and enhanced the children's delighted cries. There'll be no road bike for a couple of days.

Berlin 2018

Looking For Jens ☍
Geoffrey Armes - 2020-09-26 00:40:33+02:00

It was while out on one of these cold rides that I got to musing first about pedalling, and then second, about what had been the coldest ride of the year, possibly the decade. Possibly ever?

Pedalling was pretty simple really. On my favourite sections of the Krone, the undulating but slightly resisting mostly uphill section coming back just where those two holes are before the speedy bit into Huttenweg I sort of experienced pedalling differently. Instead of pushing up and down I was suddenly turning, gurning maybe, heavy weights around and around and around, a heavy push, a follow through to get around the peak apex... it lasted a couple of minutes and then I couldn't hold it anymore and reverted to a more normal (for me) melange of thrust and follow through and small pull maybe and then spin and then change up a gear again and push and groan at a slower rotation... actually I can look smooth, elegant even, but only when not trying.

I was sweating, but this was a cold day, when the wind bites your face and brittle tree twigs look like they'd slash your board like cheeks open with a glance but to go home you have to do this anyway.

And anyway, it's not as cold as that night ride to Jens. That night when Jens had decided on his madcap scheme to “Everest,” Teufelsberg which meant some hundreds or even thousands was it, summits of Berlin's highest climb, the one that was built by the Trümmerfrauen after the war and features the remnants of a Cold War spy station at the top. So Jens was doing this and we were all invited, and that includes me, to accompany him.

I couldn't go during the day, although I saw some coverage of the event, you know, interview, lone rider against a stark copse of trees background and so forth, and resolved I would go that night and climb a bit with him. Family accepted it, Vincent was away or something, Sascha had to work or something. I was alone, underdressed maybe (but two jackets?) and doing what I never do: setting out after nightfall. In winter and the temperature dropping fast.

By the time I rounded Auerbach, by the S Bahn the road was starting to ice in patches and I was slowing down, nervous, but a guy came by who seemed to know how to ride these streets in these conditions – and whose back light was busted. I tagged on, lending my light as I followed his line through the suddenly unfamiliar corners and had him down as going to the same place as I. Once the road opened I went alongside and mentioned the light and we chatted a bit until he turned, apparently not interested in the antics of one crazy Jens on a seriously frozen night after all.

My tires hissed through the crystallised specks of moisture on the asphalt, some corners already hardening over. Time to be careful. I was in the last stretch down to the base of the climb where I could expect to find our hero Everesting to raise money for charity. I'd do my bit too! It was pitch black as I left the last street light behind, and almost immediately saw a gaggle of lights in a car park to the right, too short a distance to be the climb proper. I kept going, pausing only to adjust the front light from flashing to still so that my eyes could begin to adjust to the lack of light, and although nervous figured to soon arrive at some base camp of sorts.

I didn't. I was down at the gate to the eco farm, way too far. That lit up area must have been it. Nothing else to do but turn the bike and head north again. One could easily disappear here. One fall on the ice and a broken limb, stuck there inert, unconscious maybe – how long would you last in what was now an extreme freeze. And I was already cold because I was scared to move fast on this quick freezing road. And what if there were those far tougher than I, and more criminally minded, who fancied a bike (all lit up in an otherwise pitch black) and a wallet to possess? A police car came slowly into view, headlights wandering the road, I thought he would stop and interview me about what are you up to so crazy in this freezing night, oh Englander. Yes, mad dogs and Englishmen in the hard evening moon looking for imagined cycle events – but wait, slow now, the light gaggle was there again and clearly, actually, this was the base area for this ride. I went over and joined a scraggly crowd of adequately dressed individuals and enquired about the Jens. Oh yes he is there, will descend soon. Minutes passed, that felt like hours and then I overheard oh he's gone home for a break but he should be here soon. I waited on, chatted a little, was I wearing enough asked one fellow who purported to be a cycling naif. Yes was my reply, if I am moving but this stationary stuff.... just then there was a loud clatter by the ingress to the area we stood – a cargo bike over in the ice, the rider groaning on the tarmac. A few of us hastened, hesitantly he rose, we straightened his bike, he joined us, unhurt, but I was seriously cold by then, starting to tremor inside. Enough was enough, I would have to go without greeting the big man this time, as I needed to rescue myself and get home over these very obviously worsening conditions. I knew there was a coffee shop at the top of this road, that might save me, even enable a return to the event, although inwardly I felt done, and knew a hard return home awaited.

Bike dumped outside by the cafe window, inside I gulped as best as I could scalding hot chocolate and attempted to warm from the centre out. This was not frozen outer reaches in a wind, this was serious deep freeze. There was no way I was going back to that mountain, this evening, in fact I wondered if I was getting home on a bike at all, but there seemed to be no other realistic way. Whatever I did I was frozen, surely it was best to be moving? I'd had enough, more cocoa and I'd need to pee on the way; it was time to be moving. Back down through the Siedlung, past the stadium, shuddering, tires hissing, legs seeking to turn, eyes alert to the street light sparks and blinding beam headlights of cars. I opted to ride through the station underpass, instead of the usual extra 500 metres, barely moving, freewheeling through in the hope of some shelter such as there is not from this kind of sheer cold, Even here a couple of station employees admonished me, “better next time walk,” to add to my misery, wearily I agreed “next time,” and waved as I passed avoiding discussion. Once emerged into the city side I found the street not so icy. There'd been a real drop of temperature in the forest compared to the city area this night. I got home, and after a long hot shower sat for a long long time.

8th and Broadway (Bikes Borrowed and Stolen)☍
Geoffrey Armes - 2020-09-07 23:22:31+02:00

“But I thought you were only going round the lake?”

Yes, the lake. The mysterious reservoir of Chew Magna, a five mile circuit of mist shrouded, low cloud engulfed spirit house. The taken by fiat ride of the village boys, during the pause before dinner to build an appetite or skip homework in the name of fitness.

Also the first miles of a journey to Weston, or in an alternative direction, Bristol.

I was not a village boy, though I longed to be.

Like the village boys I had gone to Weston that way once, past the northern half of the lake. To meet friends and friends of friends and hang out at the Technical college and pretend I was and aspire to be a student there. To be anything other than the South London escapee who was all too soon to be returned to that environment where he did not wish to be.

When my turn came I too slipped past the lake to West Harptree and carried on down the wavy ribbon road that drove through the flat fields, hinter lands and ribbon villages that adorned the path to college.

This next time though, I wanted Bristol. An action unannounced even to me until I suddenly sought a journey to my birth city and scene of my first eight years, a sign and symbol for all my longing for relief from the (I felt) much too hard vicissitude of that particular South London I lived with.

I borrowed the bike, said my goodbye and see you soon, and left with no pump no tube no knowledge of how to remove a wheel, just went.

Gone.

I’d gone into Chew and turned my back on the lake segment. Instead, on a hunch I followed a sign right, one that claimed Bristol was 11 miles away. I’d ride down there, do a turn and come back. At least I could say I’d visited the city this trip.

The road, a sinewy course of battleship grey tarmac climbed out of the village, with the usual guiding middle stripe, occasional stone farmhouse and drywall couching a spinny of trees, broken farm machinery and posh car. I pedalled further, it generally climbed even as it negotiated dips and valleys. After each descent, I would stand in the saddle and churn up the other side. I sped past a mother and daughter out for a stroll, and gasped and snorted noisily in order to underline my strength for them. Look, see me, how good I am… a last effort, surely now I’d see the city. And I did, working my way up a long slope to a sign and there it was spread below, a miasma strewn glitter pulsing in the thick light of oncoming evensong. How far? I screwed my neck around in order to read the sign. Eleven miles. 11 Miles!? Something wasn’t right - I must have made a false turn or mis-reading something on my way.

I considered going on, down the hill to the welcome below that certainly looked a lot closer than 11 miles but I couldn’t risk a mistake again.

Dusk hovered in the hedges, banked above the lanes. Reluctantly I turned, retraced to Bishop Sutton in the gloaming. On my borrowed bike.

But I thought you were going round the lake….. is all I recall of the telling off I got from the mother of the boy who’s had loaned the bike.

A couple of years later, back in London I scored Vicki’s bike. Vicki was kind of the it girl at school - also “Head Girl” - busty, blonde, American, and talented. She spent much of her spare time in the Art Department, working on textiles. I decided to emulate her - somehow this possibility of staying on after classes were officially over hadn’t occurred to me before she led the way. I would work on my painting or occasionally stained glass, and then later as time progressed we took to going back to her house for more academic studies.

I needed the bike for my commute to a summer job as the tea-boy on an inaccessible building site in Crystal Palace sports centre. No lake to circle instead came a climb and a descent in both directions. The bike was an orange racer with ten gears. The first time I rode up Crystal Palace hill, well, I didn’t. Instead I was forced into the ignominy of walking the steepest section as I had left the bike in the biggest, a sprinter’s say, gear. I learned though, and kept the bike through the summer, only reluctantly surrendering it to its rightful owner as winter adumbrated the turning year.

The third, and the first that stuck, was a Falcon, also orange (or was it gold?), bought in the early eighties from Lou’s shop in Penge for my commute to the Elephant. I learnt to climb hills on it. Crystal Palace, Anerley, Dog Kennel, College Road, Streatham, Sydenham, Denmark, all encountered at various times during those commutes. Over time all eased from leg numbingly hard into smooth and easy, familiar and welcome. Sharp short and demanding, I’d race up them against cars and cyclists alike. Every morning I was greeted with a hill. I got better, went further until this bike, replete with mudguards also rode the evening ten out on the A 21, usually needing about 25 minutes to complete the undulating circuit which while not a top three time was considered a decent outing on that course. It wasn’t Sean Yates who during this period went under 20 minutes, down near Tonbridge. A national record.

I do not remember the eventual demise of this bike, but I did manage to collect some insurance money and augment that with enough to buy a Roy Thame. Light, with butted tubing and removable mudguards this became the fourth bike. One I rode for a while, a regular commute across South London to Avery Hill, then a not so regular commute to the Laban Centre at New Cross as I increasingly opted to take the train in to my musician work at the Centre. Eventually she was stolen. Embarrassingly, left outside a seemingly deserted Penge West station and I think, stolen by the only other customer I saw there that day as I bought my monthly train ticket. Of them all that got away, that is the one I still grieve and hope to replace. More on that see the story “Lou”.

In Holland, naturally I had a borrowed Dutch Bike, an uprightly serene and stately galleon that I propelled, (although at times it propelled me) through the clanging trams and shopping areas of Kralingen to the dance class gigs I then played, to Delfthaven for the long medical I had to have in order to start that gig, or to the Hal 4 in the Waterwerk where I first met Joke. More on her later.

I was stopped once by the police for riding without lights. Luckily I was able to play the innocent foreigner well enough to be let off with a warning although I understood enough Dutch to realise that they were wondering if I was a Dutch guy taking the piss by pretending to be English.

That winter I left from Groningen (where I had no bike but a friend) for Berlin (where I eventually acquired both). The bus to the border crossed endless mist and wet roadways, and when I reached Germany the sky darkened noticeably. I drank acrid coffee, and stared through the rain at the first hills I had seen for several months.

Here I had some no name racer that I never rode far. That I eventually sold before moving to NYC. I recall no bike shops, no rural routes, no flat tires. I don’t remember buying it. I do recall taking it to Cologne on the train. and then onto Rotterdam, where it arrived separately some days after I left to return to Berlin. I recall the light on the Ku-Damm and Kantstr and Kreuzberg. The barking of the dustbin men and the clatter of bins heard but not seen from our balcony. The pillow case pink clouds as the sun rose on the long walk home early morning after the late gigs out. For some reason I rode the bike but little there. In the early eighties it was for me, that kind of time.

8th and Broadway

In New York came the orange Flandria. Procured by the girlfriend when she made the ex boyfriend return it. I had it serviced in a shop on 8th and Broadway where they flatteringly asked if I would be racing next season. My heart leaped at the idea, but my brain busily counted the fiscal reality of getting set up for that. Besides, I had a budding music career to tend.

This bike did some erranding though, from my eyrie on West 10th up to the Graham School on E 63rd or across the Village to NYU Tisch on 2nd ave. Over Westwards to Cunningham regularly one brief Summer. It was under constant threat of being stolen away from me, and eventually was nicked, along with the girl I shared life with then. In both cases the result of my laziness and in-attendance. And something of an echo of how the Roy Thame was stolen, or maybe more apt is that the loss of the Roy Thame adumbrated the loss of the Flandria:

Generally I hooked the bike over my shoulder and hoofed it up the five floors to the apartment door. Generally I locked it on the landing by our front door.

One afternoon I neglected to lock it, but some instinct caused me to check out there just as a guy had it hooked on his shoulder and was disappearing down the second flight of stairs. I tore after him, but he was fast, as fast as I was in pursuit, until without shoes but wearing socks I lost my footing and fell after him, my feet ricocheting on the rubber tread of the pine stairwell. Muffled but loud drumming echoed as I clattered and battered, fell like a skier feet first close to his back as he panicked and threw the bike down and ran the last passage way for the door with my property between us. My heel was bruised for months.

The bike was safe, at least for a few more months until a stupid afternoon. Returning from one errand, but knowing I had another shortly, and understanding that this was dangerous I locked the bike with a weak cable to the fence and climbed the stairs alone.

Of course I returned down to that ghastly empty space of mourning where the bike had been. Casting about like a hound searching a spoor, I refused to believe my own memory of how I’d left her, searched for the joke or joker to end this bad dream. Then realising life goes on even if the bike doesn’t live in your hands anymore and that there was no point stopping to report the loss I turned towards 5th ave and resumed the day.

After the debacle of the Roy Thame at Penge West station a couple of years earlier I should have known better. And this time there was no comfort of insurance for the immigrant musician in NYC 1985.

8th and Broadway

The cacophony of drums and shouts and large vehicle traffic, the scurry and hurry of an alienated lonely crowd in haste. The sound of a woman’s voice - quintessentially English - serenely pushes, cleaves, calmly through, nostalgia aching on very vowel.

“To be in England in the summertime, with my love, close to the edge”

The jeep runs the light, hangs left at Astor Place.

Tears….

8th and Broadway

“He hurt me,” she suddenly cried. “He dug his elbow in here,” pointing at her right breast. We stopped, I put my arm around her, soft protective. She whimpered. Suddenly the rage took me. Am I a man? I left her suddenly, ran and kicked out, thumped his head, then turned back. To her. We kept walking, south, and he did also, north. I think.

……………………………………………………………..

At the end of the eighties I was back in London, where another bike I loved and lost was the Dutch bike I bought from Imbert as he moved to the USA. It served me faithfully between Falconer’s studio and various Camden night clubs to my girlfriend’s flat in Hammersmith and Rambert Academy in Richmond, to my rooms in Kennington and the Central London Subud group.

In the late night small hours the exhilaration of coursing down wide monumental Central London streets under the summer half light glow over smooth asphalt was a complete sensation.

Eventually the studio expanded into two locations with the acquisition of the Firehouse studio as Falconer 2 in Kentish Town and I left the bike there as a Taxi for anyone to use between the two locations.

I was heading back to NYC.

I have few memories of the silver steed I briefly had there this time and no idea of how I acquired it. Perhaps a salient moment was when I decided to get involved with the ad hoc racing in Central Park. I tried to grab a wheel, hang on the tails of the first fast group to come by, just as the circuit turned to cross the northern edge - I remember a small rise? - but I couldn’t hold the pace and I thrashed out of the saddle to get back in as the group parted then closed again to absorb and circumvent smaller family groups out pleasure riding. I nearly sideswiped someone as we thrashed on. “What are you guys doing?” screamed a voice from behind and I knew I had been a culprit. I had terrorised a small child perhaps, or nearly smacked a father busy with his brood.

I was dangerous! Not fit, not tuned, not ready.

I lent it to a friend from England, who turned the handle bars and ruined the ride position for me who had no tools available to fix it and then it went to a mutual friend in Brooklyn who described nearly ramming parked cars while tottering along astride the beast.

Her working days were over.

There was one other, again silver, a too small for me that I bought for my eldest daughter that I later commandeered to commute from the East Village to the Cunningham Studio in Westbeth. My knees near scraping the bars I would sprint buses on ninth street or totter with a guitar on my back along Bleecker Street. Occasionally I tried riding uptown but that was when I discovered just how gridlocked NYC had become. No urban warrior and my daughter also disinterested we hung up the wheels in the basement until we moved to Berlin

Bikes now?

Well first there are the workhorses - aluminium a battered old tanks with panniers and racks, an old steel single speed that in its heyday was a more than decent track machine, the children’s bikes and the two carbon framed road machines that I drive through Grunewald on my thrice weekly quest for fitness and food for the heart. More later….

Berlin 2020