love from afar

Opus Zermatt

The other day I saw her. On her bike, a beautiful Opus Zermatt, one of many bikes I’ve been admiring for weeks. This Opus has elegant shapes and lines, brown handles and seat, with everything you'd want in a city bike, except a chain guard, and it is the colour of a spring meadow in the morning mist.

There she swept by on her two wheels, prettier than I could have imagined her. A medieval princess, in earth tones, skirt, boots, blouse, her black hair waving in the breeze, the fronts of  it pinned into a narrow curly tail over the luscious shiny back of it.

I like my 1973 Raleigh Cruiser, in a dusty, not really, blue, but a colour that blends into everything, like jeans, ...or the sea. But the bike was bought in a hurry, and it's not ideal. While it's well-built and really solid - nothing on it wiggles - it is a little whispy, the frame itself. When I'm laden down with heavy groceries, it seems to actually quiver and bend. The tires are quite narrow. I don't know how it will fare in the snow, and it's hard to find knobbies in that size. Though I'm getting conflicting advice on what's best to ride in snow, "You can grip a lot more pavement in slush with these hybrid slicks!", I have three winters under my belt, and I wish I could go with what's tried and true. Finally, after much searching and all this adapting - I'm on my fourth handlebar - I still find I'm leaning too far forward, putting a touch too much weight on my wrists.

So, my lusty eye does wander. I notice her Opus every time I pass by it. The colour always makes me gaze, and the sweeping writing on it. Lately I've been a little worried about it, because she locks it by the luggage rack, and it would be very easy to steal it. Again I walked by it this morning noticing, hm, it would be very easy to steal it.... 

Walking by again this afternoon I saw a strange gap between the leather handle grip on the right and the gear shift. As I realized that the grip must have been moved, I saw the other one was missing altogether, and once again decided that there is no point in owning anything really nice!

...in fact if you look really closely at the photograph you will see what recently happened to the bike parked beside it.