the red star

I sit at my good woman’s early-morning table while she prepares for work and her kids get ready for university and school. The Hertz office is at the end of her street. I return the rental car at eight and drive to Mick’s cyclery to pick up my new bike. He makes a couple of final adjustments and adds a bidon cage. I tote the machine across the puddled forecourt and fiddle it into the Jazz.

The rain is incessant, the forecast is for May’s monthly rain total in a day, with a gale-force southerly in the afternoon. It’s not a day to ride. I park the Red Star in the front room, the bike room, and wonder where to begin. First I must abandon all appointments for the day—I’m knackered after two 14-hour days and trips to Ballarat, Geelong and Castlemaine.

After making phone calls, texting texts and sending emails, I descend on the front room and circle the two-wheeler. It needs a pump, tool kit, bell, computer, pedals and lights. And so begins a day of cycle foolery. I have a spare pump in the bike cupboard, but can’t find the clamp. I dig out two bells but the clamps are too small for the handlebar.

The lights are easy. I unscrew the clamp bracket of my recently-acquired Cygolite Expilion 350 lumen headlight from the Red Rocket and fit it to the Red Star. I point the beam where it won’t burn out oncoming retinas, then attach the tail light to the rear rack. A cinch.  

I cut the ties off the wireless computer and transmitter on the Raceline MTB and fit them to the Red Star’s stem and left fork. No fiddling, no fuss. I reset the computer for wheel size, odo and time, spin the front wheel, and black digits pop up all over the LCD screen.

I haul the big box of bike bits out of the cupboard and rummage, unearthing three sets of SPD pedals. One turns out not to be a pair, one won’t accept my cleats, and the other has plastic flats on one side that are the devil’s work to extract. The rummaging turns up the pump clamp and a fine bell that fits the handlebar.

I load a waterproof jacket into the rack-pack, a set of tyre levers, multi-tool, new tube, patch kit and expensive locking device from Germany. To finish the job I peel off every unnecessary sticker—frame-size, frame-maker’s brand, importer’s details, brand name on the forks—but leave Mick’s shop sticker.

To round off the day I pull the knobbies of the Raceline, whack on some slicks, and install a new combination cable lock on the seat tube. I have one too many bikes under the loft bed. The MTB will go: my good women’s kids can ride it to the gym.

And tomorrow I will ride the Red Star.

Rock on.