Or something like that.

 

I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the pathetic vandalism of some little scally shits stop me cycling.  However, I think a change of tactics is in order.  The bike is a write off, if I replace the broken parts then I will have spent more on the bike than it originally cost.  So today I stripped it down and kept all the parts that may be useful in the future.  RideManchester recycles and rebuilds bikes, they can have the frame (minus the new V brakes I bought last month) and all the other useful bits are going into a bucket to be reused.  And then I’m going to get a new bike.

 

My new bike is going to be an old bike.  The bike shop just down the road has a selection of second hand, pre-abused cycles displayed in front of it.  I’m lucky in that I can currently get a tax break on my travelling expenses, which translates to a mileage allowance for cycling of £2 a day.  If I pick up a £40 or £50 bike I reckon it’ll pay for itself within a month.  So then, if the scallies do hit my ride as regularly as they have since we moved in at least it will have paid for itself in the mean time.  (Plus they don’t seem to have touched the crappy old bikes that are chained up on the same street, it may just have been the shiney silvery-ness of my bike that attracted them magpie like.)  I’ll stick with crappy bikes until we move somewhere where I can store them indoors.

 

It’s either this or finding a way to wire my bike up to the mains for the next time they try anything, and that’s just not eco-friendly.