Monday Blues: Badge of Honor

 

Cruisers wear it. Old road bikes wear it. Mountain bikes wear it as well. That salty sea air that comes in with the tide, gives a nice coating to all it touches, starts a process of transformation. Expensive carbon fibre brethren pass through on the fly and look with disdain, but among the breed, it is worn as a badge of honor, a mark of distinction. Mellow out man; life is good. Rust? Why yes - I live at the beach. They say you can tell the age of the old-timers by the spread of the patina, and that you can't even work the bolts loose on the really ancient ones. Stories tell of one whose chain had melded to those rear cogs and would not budge; when the bike's rider slammed her foot down on the pedal in frustration, the chain broke apart, forming a line of rust dust on the ground between the wheels. The beach bike is nothing if not hardy, and that one lived another ten years, or so I have heard.

The Monday Blues has been an occasional feature here at the blog since inception; the blues, an emotion, a color, a genre of music, with a cycling twist.