When I was growing up, we were always out on our bikes, out of town, into the local countryside, not too far from home but just enough to feel you were on your own; maybe a bit vulnerable. One time, we took our bikes out to the back of the golf course near the airport. There was a strange tower built there, and a ruined house, so we put down our bikes and wandered into the woods to see what else we could find. Sometime later we came back to find one of the bikes, the new Chopper, stripped of its handlebars, long seat and back rest. It wasn’t my bike, my old bike hadn’t been touched. My friend was distraught, his grandfather had bought it for him from winnings on the pools. It was the end of the world. The bike was left with no way of cycling it back home. We ran out onto the nearby road and flagged down a car, which we had never done before, but it seemed like the thing to do in a crisis. They had seen some boys with towels under their arms, maybe it was the bike parts. I don’t remember what we did next, we must have just pushed the bikes back home.
When I’m out on my bike in the countryside today, there is a pleasant feeling but also a lurking dark side to the environment. You never know what is around you when you come off your bike and go wandering into a wood, as you never know what you might come back to.
Iain Irving 