The bicycle was one year old, and contrary to my wife’s expectations, I had cycled to the train station and back most days.  I wasn’t the lean, honed super-athlete that I had anticipated, but I did have the smug superiority over lazy, fat, polluting car-drivers.

One year old, and apart from the odd scratch and scuff, she was looking pretty good, much like myself.  Apart from one puncture and a strained calf muscle, we had come through the experience without any major incidents.  It was time, I decided, to treat the girl to a physical.  So I took her back to the shop for her first annual service.

It’s good to know, in these days of globalization and economies of scale, that such shops still exist.  It was a small shop off the main shopping streets, but every cubic inch of space inside was crammed with bikes and biking paraphernalia. Bikes for kids, men and women filled the centre of the shop floor.  Touring, racing, mountain, with suspension and without, even a full-size trike: just about every type of bicycle you could want was represented here.  They even hung from the rafters, all with hand-written cardboard signs extolling the features and the price, though if the owner liked you, the price was just a guideline.  The walls were racked full of pumps and helmets, cycle clips and gloves, lights and mudguards.  The clothing section had more than enough spandex and PVC to sate the most jaded appetite.  They even kept with the times and had a variety of cycle computers (not just speedometers, you understand) that would tell you every distance and speed statistic of your journey you could ever need.

It was, in short, cycle heaven.

The owner, Mr Edwards (call me Frank, everyone does), was a salt-of-the-earth man that looked as though he had stepped straight out of a public information film of the fifties.  He seemed as though he should be in black and white.  He wore a brown coat that used to be favoured by hardware store assistants, a pair of wire-framed NHS glasses and a salt-and-pepper moustache that never had a hair out of place.  He always had a pipe in his hand, though perhaps in deference to modern thinking, it never appeared to be alight.

He served me the first day I made enquiries about the bike.  I was just curious at the time, and woefully ignorant, but he spent half an hour chatting about inside leg measurements, bike journeys and headgear.  I left a hundred and fifty pounds poorer and a promise that he’d customise the bike I had apparently just bought to meet my exact requirements.  Do you get that sort of service from a large chain store?  I don’t think so.

The workshop at the back of the store was manned by a greasy stick of a man, who was probably in his forties, but gave the impression of a youth going through puberty.  He was all limbs and awkwardness, with a shy disposition that meant that he never looked you straight in the eye.  But when you watched him bolting a bike together, you could see that this was the job he was born to.

It was a nice day, that Saturday, so I cycled in, the weekend traffic making a welcome change to the rush-hour franticism we usually endured.

Frank smiled in welcome recognition as I pushed the bike into the shop, though I hadn’t been back since I’d bought the bike.  Then I realised it wasn’t me that he had recognised, but the bicycle.

“How can I help you, sir?” he beamed.

“It’s the old girl.  I’ve booked her in for a service.”

That’s how we talk, we dedicated cyclists.  It’s a bonding thing.  ‘It’ is not a chunk of metal; ‘she’ is a sleek and swift obsession.

He took his unlit pipe from his mouth.  “Bob!” he yelled.  The matchstick figure of the mechanic appeared from the workshop at the back.  “This gentleman wants his bicycle serviced.”

Bob grinned, making me feel uncomfortable.  There was a quality to his smile that shouldn’t have been there, not at the prospect of having at a bicycle with, well, whatever it is with which mechanics have at bicycles.

“A service?  Oh, yeah, she’s booked in, isn’t she.”  He said this, not looking at me, but staring at the bicycle with a leer.

“I’ll … I’ll pick her up about lunchtime?” I asked.

“Yeah, she’ll be serviced by then, won’t you, girl?”

And, true to their word, she was ready when I came to pick her up.

I first started to notice problems about three weeks later.  It seemed to me she was heavier, more sluggish.  On the way back from the station I tackled Boundary Hill, a gentle slope except for the last steep hundred metres.  I considered it a point of pride to cycle to the top without dismounting or standing on the pedals, but for the first time I had to get off and push.  And she seemed heavier as I pushed.  Was this how middle age started?  Hills became steeper, objects became heavier, and before you know it you’re complaining that the charts don’t have any proper songs like they did when you were young and why doesn’t anyone show respect anymore?

The next week the third gear on the pedals jammed.  I could get the first fourteen gears, but she refused to get into the top seven, which meant instead of flying down Boundary Hill like an eagle on the hunt, I was pedalling like a demented demon with little to show for it.  My speeding rocket had become a squib.

The final straw came when she jammed on her brakes and refused to move one frosty morning.  I would go see Mr Edwards, and unless he sorted her out, I’d call him more than Frank.

That Saturday I took her (in the back of my hatchback) to the cycle shop, determined to have satisfaction.  Frank greeted me with the same smile.

“I had my bike serviced six months ago.”

“Yes?”

“Well, quite honestly, I’m not happy.”

“No?”

“No, she’s been acting up ever since.  She’s slow and heavy, and the other morning she jammed on her brakes and wouldn’t move.”

“Ah, yes.  That tends to happen sometimes.  You just have to be patient with her.”

“Excuse me?  Patient?”  Did this man not understand me?  Had I suddenly started talking Polish?

“Yes, you have to expect her to be a little temperamental after being serviced.  It’s only natural.  Give it another couple of months and she’ll be fine.  Bob!”

Bob came out of the workshop, wiping his hands on a rag.  He looked at my bike and I swear he gave it a nod in greeting.

“Bob, this gentleman is complaining about the servicing of his bicycle.  Did you have any problems?”

Bob leered and shook his head.  “No, Frank.  Not at all.  She was up for it, sweet as a nut.”

I felt I had entered into a surreal parallel universe.  “But she’s heavy and sluggish.”

Bob wiped her crossbar tenderly with the rag.  “Well, she will be, won’t she, till she drops.”

“Drops?”

“Yeah, until she drops her kid, she’ll be a bit slow.  It’s only natural.  Looks like twins.”

“Twins?  Drops?  What the hell are you talking about?”

The two men looked at each other, confused.

“Um…” started Frank.  “When you asked for her to be serviced, what were you expecting?”

“I don’t know.  Greasing the chain, changing the brake pads, that sort of thing.”

Understanding dawned on their faces.  “Oh dear, I’m most terribly sorry,” explained Frank.  “When you said you wanted her ‘serviced’, I thought … I mean … well, I just assumed you wanted her … you know … ‘serviced’.”

“Serviced?”  I was lost.

“Yeah, you know,” Bob made a fist and pushed his arm out, “serviced, by a bull bike.”

So last week she gave birth.  It was twins: one boy, one girl.  She’s still a little slow, and to be frank, I’ve gone off the whole cycling thing.  I’ve put the twins up for adoption.  Well, I’ve put them on Ebay, if you must know.  Not that anyone is showing any interest.  I can understand that.  After all, who wants a pair of roller skates, one boy’s, one girl’s?