THE FIRST BIKE I REALLY LOVED

WE DRIFTED EFFORTLESSLY, LEAVING JUST CARBON-COMPOUND FOOTPRINTS. THIS WOULD ALWAYS BE THE PLACE WE FIRST BROKE UP, THE PLACE WE FIRST MADE UP. OUR PLACE. THEY SAY LOVE HURTS; BUT THIS WAS NEXT-LEVEL.

I have owned a lot of bikes over the years. A very lot. Road, mountain, geared, single-speed, fancy, not fancy.

My cyclingmates probably think they know the bike that really captured my heart, from that storied collection. They would be wrong.

The Raleigh 753 I bought from Don Spence in ’83? The gorgeous iridescent pearl Eddy Merckx I was on when I first broke three hours at The Argus (as it was correctly called back then) in the alleged ‘summer’ Tour of 1987?

The red anodised Alan that I first started racing bikes on, after a few years exploring my world on a series of locally-built steel beauties – Lejeune, Diamant, Peugeot… possibly even the Bridgestone MB3 I bought from Bruce Reyneke while pretending to be a soldier in Pretoria in ’87, which would expand my riding horizons beyond repair as the ‘it’ll never catch on’ fad of mountain biking took hold?

Or the sponsored Kona Hei Hei in the UK, all 9.8kg of it, in 1991? I thought I loved that Kona; but then I thought I loved each of the others, too. My current affair involves a Santa Cruz Stigmata that has been my constant companion for nearly four years, at the expense of almost all my other bikes.

Almost.

DARK SECRET For there has always been a dark secret in my ‘dream bike’ shed; one that has manifested in many forms over the years, and has culminated in the lithe, dark beauty I sometimes sit with in the man cave (AKA my garage), and just purr over.

She is Polish, by birth; but her predecessors have been American, German and Newlandsian… you see, growing up riding bikes in the ‘80s – and especially, pretending you could ride them fast – you couldn’t help but be impressed by the recumbents that dominated the Argus.