The Bastards

What a heartbreaking start to the week as this morning I stepped outside to find the remnant scrap of my cable lock where once my entire bike had been.

Yes, it's true, I'm a victim of crime.

I've owned many bikes in my time. Some have taught me the very art of cycling. Some have fallen apart beneath me and nearly killed me completely. Some have been "borrowed" by my brother and then sold on the black market to generate cash for booze.

No bike in my life has ever been so awesome as the one that was wrenched from me last night by some prick with bolt-cutters.

My Dawes Horizon Tour was bought off some bloke on Ebay who wanted to get rid of it because he was incredibly short and the bike was insanely big. As it happened, it was too big for me, but it had a lot in its favour which made me ignore that fact - primarily, it was 100% ready to take touring around the countryside in my brief sabbatical between jobs.

And that's exactly what I did with it - we went cycling all the way to my Mum's house in Shaftesbury, Dorset, but took an awesome route via Brighton, Chichester, and the New Forest.

It was such an awesome trip - I had so much fun seeing parts of the countryside familiar and unfamiliar, and the bike performed above and beyond its second hand price tag.

It was the first and only time that I've taken a bike ride as a holiday. Generally I use a bike for commuting, which is frankly a miserable experience at best. The opportunity to get out into the open air, carrying my spare clothes and puncture repair kit, eating sandwiches in fields with cows, and seeing a little part of the world at a unique pace - well, it was something I feel lucky to have done.

Over those 5 days of riding I formed a bond with this bike. I got to know it - the gears it liked best, the best way to take a sharp turn without upsetting it, the limits of its tolerance for speed and sharp bumps. And now that bond has been cruelly and suddenly torn apart.

That bike will probably make its new owner a quick buck. I only hope that quick buck comes from selling it to someone who's going to enjoy it as much as I did. Someone who'll take it away from the misery of London roads and give it a country lane in Dorset to ride down - that's how I'll always remember it, that's why I'll never enjoy another bike quite as much as that one.