The other morning, I got a text from my brother (who lives in the flat across the landing from me, and who cycles too) telling me, and I quote: Give us a chap, our bikes have just been knocked.
Man!
Apparently, two young hooded characters had been up here on the top landing around 7.30am hacksawing away as we both lay in our respective beds dead to the world. One of the railings had been sawn right through leaving half of it (as a memento, presumably) on the stair. My lock which was not as sturdy as my brother's kryptonite lock had been taken along with my bike (no memento for me).
At any rate, what alarmed me was not so much the stealing of the bike, as the chutzpa of these young chaps, coming up here to the fourth floor at 7.30am in the morning (when many people are getting ready to go to work) and spending the best part of twenty minutes dismembering locks, railings and bikes. I am kinda glad I wasn't awake. God knows what I would have done had I found some youngster relieving me of my most prized possession. I would have probably just stood there in awe at the gall.
Whatever the case, the bike was insured, and after 18 months cycling it, I found it and its ultra-large 29" wheels just too big for me. In fact, I was talking to my brother just the other day about looking to buy another smaller wheeled bike. Maybe, then, in the Great Mystery of the Cosmos, I caused it to happen....
The other side of the coin is that for a brief moment, those two young men, would have been the most elated in all Glasgow that morning, cycling off into the sunrise (hidden behind clouds), and feeling like a million dollars (I had just washed my bike a few days earlier, for only the second time since I bought it! and my brother's Scott was a tailor-made beauty!). So maybe, the world's happiness increased that day. Without their devious little hands, I would never have met up with my father and brother yesterday morning and taken a trip up to Dales just like old times (when my father took me there as a teenager to get my first bike)....
What is crime after all, so says a character in The Asphalt Jungle, but the left-handed form of endeavour.
It's a strange world no doubt.
My brother cleansing his Scott...
We had some great times together... So long old friend!
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