Christmas present or New Year’s Resolution?

It’s always interesting to analyse why people are cycling in January. And I know that we're still in January because there's a massive poster outside Waterloo station telling me to complete my tax return by 31st. I’m currently on the bike because my car’s being repaired. I’m actually enjoying it – except for the bit where I arrive at the station to see the twice-hourly train pulling away.

My commuting steed is a fixed-wheel, late ‘60’s Allin. I love the bike and had big plans to convert it into a mean looking, brakeless speed machine. In much the same way that many youths actually believe that body kits and under floor neon lighting will improve the performance of a Citroen Saxo 1.1L. Common sense and lack of time prevailed and the Allin, complete with perished tyres, plastic bar tape and Wienmann sidepulls (at least I got a bike with no brakes) remains unchanged from the day I bought it.

So my wheels are on the train next to a box-fresh Dawes Ultra Galaxy . Reflectors proudly gleaming on the pedals and spokes, 10 speed cassette marking time like Booker T and the MG’s drummer on “Melting Pot”. The owner was fully kitted in the Armani of the world of cycling – Altura. It sounds classy, but then you realise that everyone and their dog’s wearing the same stuff.

So was this a Christmas present of was it a New Year’s resolution? Surely nobody organises all their present buying friends to start an entirely new sport - with a round robin of emails to aunty Angie (helmet and hi-viz jacket), cousin Pete (Goretex gloves) … This was New Year Resolution territory, it was all so smart. No scuffs, marks, rips, marks or splatters on anything. Even the Brookes saddle looked as if it had at lest another 1000 miles of pain infliction left in it. Here was a case of “ I’m going to take up cycling and to prove I’m serious I’m going to spend at least £2k doing so”. I can imagine the clamour of sales assistants at Evans Cycles (the customer care hotline number still stuck to the downtube) cross-selling and upselling as if their lives depended on it.