Sexy Redheads

23 September - Nightmare morning of bicycle maintenance - on Friday i'd called Cheeky Monkey, a courier's favourite, to see if they had a set of bullhorn handlebars. Was told, yes, they did. Great, i'll be in tomorrow to buy 'em. No problem. However, by the time I got to the bike store in Newtown on Saturday morning (after a decent pancake breakfast of course) and after standing around the store for 15m with nary a 'i'll be with you in a second' I told them what I wanted and I was told, 'oh, we sold them yesterday'. Right, great, I muttered as I stormed out of the store, never to be seen there again ... A boycott? Ooh, you'd better believe it. Areal shame - Cheeky Monkey is one of the courier favourites, almost certainly because of their proximity to the city (used to be just at Central station) but, to me, it seems they must be trying to move away from that clientele because Newtown is just too far away for couriers to go to if they have any needs whilst working. In any event, found myself at couple of different bike stores with not much luck until I came back to my old Inner City Cycles of Glebe, a place i've never really been too fond of but they had what I wanted and when I couldn’t fit the bars through the steam I brought it in for them to do - left it with them for 15m and came back to find that the mechanic had snapped the stem forcing them through so he'd donated a very nice chrome one piece so it would work. However, now the brake lever wouldn’t fit and I had to go to CBD for Alex to put on the bar tape - they had nothing in stock so had to go to Clarence St Cyclery, a place that doesn’t offer a courier discount and also happens to be boycotted by the majority of Sydney's courier scene - well, they had the exact brake levers that I wanted and they haven't annoyed me to the point of boycott ... Yet, so made the purchase. All sorted now, just the config that I wanted and it onlytook four hours. Red handlebars make for a very sexy girl and perfectly suited for practising riding brakeless. Very happy courier. After this met with Evil Jodi for a café who was looking for a hot pink toilet seat and then went off to Jeannie's place in Wolloomoolloo (i'm sure i've mispelt that one) for a very nice barbecue - thought it would be courier only but was very wrong - most excellent food and tidbits - and very wide variey of guests -felt a little bit shy though and hid in the corner for a while. Broke off for a while to head down to richie's (Biker 106) stag do where got a little bit more drunk and had a slightlywobbly ride home.