On Monday, I rebuilt my bike.
It’s a twice-yearly ritual and one of my most satisfying. Stripping it down to the bare frame, every part laid out on the kitchen table from the bottom bracket to the brake blocks, everything examined and inspected, cleaned and polished, is a ruminative, meditative exercise.
It’s the moment when I check everything, when I find the points of weakness and fix them; when, methodically putting it back together, tight and secure, I make myself safe again.
When I set out on the dark London streets on Tuesday morning I felt the difference straight away, in the silent, smooth climb up the first hill. But then, on the descent, a bus passed me just a shade too close and I suddenly felt vulnerable, intensely aware of the fragility of the bike alongside a speeding double decker; and, more to the point, the fragility of me.
The sense of potential disaster clung to me as I rode on and I started to wonder about the other places in my life I wasn’t performing running repairs – in my friendships, my family, the Museum – and how vulnerable that might make me to getting flattened in other ways.
St Paul was emphatic about the need for running repairs, especially in relationships. He wrote to his friends in Ephesus, “Do not let the sun go down on your anger”. In other words – fix things every day.
Now, I don’t think that advice is just about anger. I’d say I’m not angry all the time (though those who know me best might disagree) but how often do I set off in the morning with the bike in perfect working order but everything else a little awry?
How often do I leave home with a task undone or a promise unfulfilled? How often do I part from the people I love without telling them that I love them?
The thing is, it’s not just the bike that needs regular maintenance, because the bike isn’t the only place I’m vulnerable. So perhaps, every so often, I need to strip my life down as well, clean up all the moving parts and mend the broken bits. I may not be able to fix everything right away but at least I’ll know where the danger might be coming from; and that’ll help me to avoid getting flattened by the next passing bus.
This is my bike. It is built around Reynolds 531 Raleigh frame made in the Worksop factory in 1979.
This was broadcast on my daughter Miriam’s 25th birthday.