A call from one of my dafter al’ buddies on Monday.
Had I seen the latest? Losh, wis she excited: “The ebikes are starting this week. We should get in there fast and go for a whirly roon the city centre. They’re electric so you barely have to pedal.”
Here’s me: “Just as well since yer waitin’ for yer new knee.” When I told her nothing on God’s earth would tempt me to upload masellie on to a saddle, with or without an e, she declared me a boring stick-in-the-mud.
It sounds like a great idea for more agile Aberdonians. First mooted back in 2018, they were going to be Barney-Bikes, in the model of London’s Boris ones. However, with Mr Crockett no longer Lord Provost, Davey Bikes don’t sound, well, nae exactly the trendiest. So we’ve got 200 Big Issue eBikes a’ ower toon, traced and paid-for via an app. (Why does the whole of life revolve around apps these days?)
Deep doon inside, I’d love to have a go. Sadly, my experiences on two wheels are – a bit like my relationships with men – more off than on.
I didn’t even learn until I was 10, on the still-existent cobbles on Albert Terrace, of a’ places. Never confident, I wobbled off on my dark green, gearless Raleigh every evening with a pucklie other quines to watch the loons playing football in Westburn Park.
Pedal or ebike power is not for me
Sometimes we’d pech up King’s Gate to our secret entrance to fabulous Rubislaw Den, that private paradise between the poshos’ mansions of the North and South. Once, disastrously, on the return trip, free-wheelin’ doon the Gate, I lost control, hit the brakes, sailed ower the handlebars and slithered, on bare knees and hands, across the tarmac ootside The Atholl.
I suspect my poor mum took me for some kinda zombie as I dripped bleed into the hoose. On to the bussie up to the Sick Kids, only to be told I was six months too old, so I bled doon to spooky Woolmanhill, where the doc took a scrubbing brush to the gravel in my wounds. Wi’ a’ the bandaged limbs, I really did look like a zombie my first day at The High.
I barely cycled again until, hitting my late 40s, my then hubby saw a super bike for sale in the EE, bought it and started urging me to join him in a pleasant pedal. After digging my vintage Raleigh oot o’ the garage, we embarked on a charming weekly tea-time routine. Cycle along the Deeside line, supper at The Bieldside Inn.
My big mistake was growing confidence. Dark memories of the King’s Gate crash behind me, I took to racing him along the wee path. One beautiful September evening I got my comeuppance. Again losing control, I veered at speed towards the undergrowth, heidie-first into a voluminous bramble bush. All the sod could do was laugh.
Having eventually been successfully disentagled from the briar patch, I went hirplin’ into The Bieldie like some sort of foostie bag-lady – clumps of gorse in my hair and on my jumper, scratches doon my phizog and gobs of bramble juice on my jeans. Don’t think my bum has graced a saddle since. Better stick-in-the-mud than stuck-in-the-thorns.
Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press & Journal, and started her journalism career in 1970
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