h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The sky is heavy with dark clouds. There are showers coming down every half hour or so. The temperature is decidedly parky for this time of year.

Therefore the health-freak oafs who insist on blocking up the roads on this day all the way between London and Brighton, with their half-arsed bike race, won't have an excuse for wafting gallons of stale sweat into the air as they huff and puff past my house.






Yeah, it's that time of year again. The time for my annual whinging bike race journal

**sets watch**

B

I sympathise. The Sheffield half-marathon goes past my flat, which wouldn't have been so bad had the coffee shop opposite not decided to set up a giant speaker system to play crap music at the runners to spur them on.

One of the benefits of living in an apartment complex is not having to deal with this sort of thing

*Also sets watch, DVD clock, radio alarm etc*

Fair play to the chap who did the journey on a Chopper

Also respect is due to the policewoman who was controlling the traffic flow along Lewes Road some 70 yards down from a pedestrian crossing. An arrogant cyclist blasted straight through the crossing whilst the lights were on red and folk were trying to cross. This Miss Plod flagged the bloke down and gave him a right bollocking about respect for traffic signals

Then there's the time taken by these people to do the journey. It was nearing 6pm and there were folk going past me with start times of 8am on their race numbers. Excuse me that's 10 hours; you've only got 50ish miles to complete, that's 5 miles an hour their doing. That's not much faster than walking pace you lazy sods

London to Brighton on a Raleigh Chopper? That's class

I didn't hear anyone talk of a bike.

B

Stop trying to be smutty, B. To someone of mine and Gosho's generations (though Gosho might be just a year or two too old) the word Chopper means only one thing, and it's got nothing to do with butchery or willies.

And another thing, despite Recumbentman's assertions that the recumbent bicycle is a superior machine, I saw only one recumbent bike all afternoon; and that one was a three-wheeler, so that's surely cheating.

The reason you won't see many recumbents is they are still much more expensive. Because of one recumbent beating the crap out everyone else over 100 years ago, the international bicycle racing org (the one with the very French name) banned them. And since they are banned in international racing the average bike rider who in his mind thinks he may one day win the tour de france won't buy a bent so the standard bike is produced in much greater numbers making them cheaper and ubiquitous.

My 'bent was about 5 times more expensive than a decent traditional bike, but it was well worth it.

I have no longer have any delusions of "breaking away".

I think I was just a couple years too old to actually own a Chopper. Wikipedia says it was introduced in 1970, at which time I'd have been 14 and probably at the upper end of the age demographic, but I already had me a 'grown up' bike by then and my parents certainly wouldn't have shelled out the fantastically extravagant sum of 32 nicker so I could have the sort of bike that might come with a sticker that says 'My other bike's a Chopper'.

A recumbent 3-wheeler?

Blimey, that's just a portable sofa, isn't it? Put in a wireless laptop and you needn't get up all day.

B

A wireless laptop, a microwave oven, a beer fridge and a khazi.

Let's cover *all* of life's necessities shall we? Need a shower? Just disrobe when it rains

Actually I'm of the age where chopper means both bike *and* willy, although I expect I'd think of bike first. And I'm pretty sure you're not much older than me GD, if you are older.

I'm young. I immediately thought "penis".

i thought of a Harley hog

What?... No one thought of a helicopter?

nope not me

evidently google didnt either http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=chopper&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2