It turns out that Ryan Woodard, one of the songwriters who participated last year in FAWM (the songwriting challenge I organize) lives here in Cambridge. Not only that, he and his wife have two spare bicycles, and said we are welcome to use them. We walked 3 miles to the other side of town this morning to pick them up: a women’s touring bike (complete with front basket and bell) and a mountain bike which was in pieces and a little small for me, but certainly OK for four months. Then we walked about a mile back (carrying all the pieces) until we found a bike repair shop. After £20 (~$40) worth of tubes, tires, and tune-ups, we were road-worthy. That’s waaaaaay less than the £100-125 we were expecting to pay for used bikes here.
Since it was going to take the repair guy a half hour or so to finish the bikes, we were very hungry, and there was a friendly neighborhood Fillet With Chips… we each ordered some haddock and chips to eat while we waited. We should have only ordered one, as it was so much food we could each only eat half! But it re-heats well. In fact, Natalie is munching on her leftovers for dinner right next to me, right now.
Then we went into town to get some helmets, locks, and lights at Argos. It’s a curious little store that is like a mail-order catalog, except you can walk in and take the items home after they bring it out from the warehouse in the back. It takes about 3-5 minutes to process an order. Then we biked on home, and here we are. We owe Ryan and Hilary a great deal of thanks for helping us out with the bikes. When Ryan gets back in the country (he’s in Chile right now on business) we’ll have to take them out for a pint or two!
PS: We have to get used to biking on the left side of the road now, as well. 