As in all the best tales its demise was prefigured. A certain vagueness in corners, the odd hard to locate creak. The tyres weren't flat and the cranks weren't loose - rather the down tube had cracked an inch from the head tube. Game over man, game over.
Six thousand eight hundred and seventy nine days of service. Nineteen years of daily grind. Three forks, four saddles, three pairs of wheels, uncountable drive chains and still the frame ploughed on. Until today.
Turned into a trail bike and hammered clear across the country a couple of times. Over the Corrieyairick and across endless bogs hitched to a week's food and shelter.
No life should go unrecorded and my destrier will have its memorial. In an e-mail to Marin a week ago I noted that 'if the frame collapsed tomorrow it would owe me nothing'. This is not ultimate irony but simply proof that my subconscious had already understood and come to terms with the bike's impending end. It does indeed owe me nothing - I owe it - and I was not upset to see the crack, even knowing it to be fatal.
The Scaffolding Bike is dead.
So it goes. I'm glad its last mission was in aid of a tricycle for a special school and a special boy. Anybody got any ideas for a Viking bike funeral? I have begun the search for a host frame for the components, which I shall strip at the weekend.
Long live the Scaffolding Bike.
Born 12/02/2000 Edinburgh Bicycle Co-op
Died 13/12/2018 St Crispin's School
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