Bike's back in action

Behold! The bike on which I achieved my greatest feats of road cycling: two journeys of over 200km (Ealing - Bristol and Jeziorki - Belarusian border, both within a day) and covering 75km in under three hours. Of late, this bike's been standing idle in the garage, but as the cycling season gets underway, I decided to get it professionally overhauled and roadworthy. Sporting new tyres, new brake and gear cables, greased axles with new ball-bearings, my Holdsworth Triath-Elan is ready.

It is very satisfying to get a mid 1980s bike back into perfect condition; something that cost less than a fifth of buying a new road bike of similar upper-middle range specifications (frame and groupset). Well-maintained, bikes can last as long as spares are obtainable.

My shakedown ride today consisted of 17.5km (average speed 20km/h, pedestrian really), around Zgorzała, Nowa Wola, Jancewicze, Podolszyn, Nowy Podolszyn, Łady (pron. 'WUDDy'), Dawidy Bankowe and Zamienie, getting the new cables to bed in.

A ride I fancy would be Jeziorki - Góra Kalwaria - Warszowice - Osieck - Pilawa and back by train. A mere 50km, good practice for a season's cycling.

Incidentally, as I've been writing about loanwords of late, the Polish for 'bicycle' is rower (pron. ROVVerr). The word comes from... Rover, the British manufacturer which introduced the safety cycle (chain driven rear wheel, tubular metal frame, two wheels of similar size) in 1886. Anything else would have been a welocyped (velocipede).