Pashley People - Lincoln Shaw
The latest in our regular series of profiles of riders of Pashley and Moulton bicycles.
It’s a freezing cold January morning. The sun is not yet up and a dark sky looks ominously like rain. It starts to sleet. I’ll take sleet over rain any day.
Already the streets of Birmingham are packed with cars, lorries, buses and vans, all competing for every available square foot of space in the rush hour. They show scant regard for a cyclist protected by little more than a few layers of clothing and a plastic helmet.
The surface feels greasy. Tyres struggle for friction with layers comprised of ice, water, wet leaves and hidden potholes. – Why am I doing this? Even more bizarrely, why do I feel so good about it?
The joy of cycling is hard to define. I expect every one of us has their own motivations and satisfactions that are personal to them.
Maybe it’s the universal joy of putting your faith in the physics of angular momentum, the counter intuitive knowledge that the faster you go, the more chance you have of staying upright. That feeling of flying through the air with only a couple of square cm of rubber providing interaction with the ground?
Maybe it’s the heightened awareness that comes from the experience of cycling through heavy traffic, senses finely tuned, reflexes sharp, the feeling of released endorphins upon reaching your destination in one piece?
Maybe it’s the altruistic, utilitarian aspect of cycling that we love so much? Urban warriors protecting the environment, beating our carbon footprint into submission.
For myself it’s all of the above and also some undefined reason that always makes me happy when I get on my bike.
Although I do cycle for pleasure, it’s really more of a practical necessity. I’m not up at dawn every Sunday dripping in Lycra, powering a carbon fibre racer along the roads. My spare time is taken for golf and I don’t let much get in the way of that.
My job takes me all over Birmingham, it’s simply faster and much cheaper to use a bike as my mode of transport. I’m experienced to know some great short cuts and back roads that minimise engagement with the enemy. I’m also lucky enough to be able to take advantage of one of the most incredible feats of industrial infrastructure ever built, the HS2 of its day, The Birmingham Canal system. They say Birmingham has more canals than Venice, I can well believe it. Every day I cycle along miles of this forgotten transport link. Lined by industrial decay, it’s a bizarre, sometimes scary route that reeks of dystopian cool.
My bike of choice is a Pashley Morgan 8. This is not the most practical bicycle, nor the fastest, and certainly not the lightest. But, if Steve McQueen were alive today, and a cyclist, I’m pretty sure this is what he’d chose. It’s simply the sexiest bike I’ve ever seen. It has the sort of aesthetic appeal usually reserved for a Spitfire or classic Sports car.
It’s also great fun to ride, surprisingly manoeuvrable and very responsive, perfect for the riggers of canal riding and the occasional off-road excursions.
In a society that is increasingly blighted by the effects of stress and overwork, I feel lucky that I’ve discovered this antidote. The ultimate life hack that keeps my mental health in perfect equilibrium.
A way to start the day on a high, and finish with a sense of contentment.
Happy Cycling.
Lincoln Shaw