Archive for June, 2009

18
Jun
09

hors delai

I was contemplating the wreckage of my bicycle today, and my general ineptitude at maintaining/ riding the sorry beast, when I was struck by the need for a bicycle gang to serve my personal take on bike kulcha. It is time for the slow downtrodden riders of crappy velocipedes to rise up and celebrate a relaxed, laissez-faire approach to their transports of delight. I give you the Whore’s Delay (DFL Cadre). We will embrace rust and reject speed. We will block paths and let our calves go to shit. We will get distracted removing our wheels, catch our hands in the derailleur, and forget the blasted thing while digging for tcp. Our idleness will only be broken at full moon, when we round up hipster bike nazis and garotte them with specially adapted trouser clips.

The admission process is as follows:

1) The Duel. The initiate must take up a mitt thown down by their sponsor, and then ride past them, catching them on the cheek with the glove. Both riders will then pause to exchange spiky badinage on the condition of their respective mounts, family members and choice of footwear.

2)The sixpack ride. The initiates will ride in a group to a local off licence and buy six beers each. One of them will suggest an interesting place to drink the beer. They will ride there, drink, and decide on the next stop and so on. It will soon become apparent that the beer is becoming rather shaken by being kept in a plastic bags slung over handlebars. The initiates will complain that wine would have been more appropriate, although potable wine does not come in six packs, thus negating the valuable point of whole exercise. Shirts will be soaked, and a degree of anxiety raised about catching cold, and people will sulk off home before the booze is finished.

3)The initiate will have a poorly informed and slightly hostile exchange with a teenage bicycle mechanic. Their bicycle will remain shit.