Being on the bike all day you don’t really get to meet any interesting people. When you stop at the youth hostel, you don’t either. Today we met Macolm Monologuer all the way from Monotony in Boringshire. I stress this was not a conversation (implying participation) but I did make the fatal mistake of opening the conversation. “That’s a nice bike” said I.
“It’s a Dawes Galaxy. The last one built in the UK about 8 years ago. I bought it off ebay for £300. I handbuilt the wheels myself. I don’t trust factory wheels. I met a young lad doing the End to End and he was a bit upset. I fixed his cranks and bought him lunch and he seemed quite happy to set off again. I cleaned my Dad’s bathroom. He’s 81 you know. My sister lives in Shropshire. I gave up cycling about 7 years ago and sold all my bikes. That’s why I had to buy one off ebay. I rode along the B3135 today rather than the B1436. Both of them are better than the B2198 but not as direct as the B467854322……………..(3 hours later)……………………and the wife really enjoyed the west coast of Ireland.
Malcom has had a tough past few years, you know. He sold his bikes and gave up cycling because he needed the money to send his sister to rehab at Slowtalker's Anonymous and with his sister away, he was the only family member left to take care of his father. You really don't need bikes for that. His father is hard of hearing and actually Malcom is too, but neither is aware of this and when they have a conversation they imagine that the other is actually participating in *their* conversation, which is really two monologues with little, if any, intersecting points. They nod and say, "you know" a lot......
ReplyDeleteWere you in the room ???
ReplyDeleteIt could be worse. You could have been on a 4 day cycle tour with a Scot drooling at trains.
ReplyDeleteI was. I was the nurse in charge of the ward.
ReplyDelete