NEW YEAR: OLD CHESTNUTS

You don’t have to spend very long with older riders of older bikes to realise that a number of views seem to regularly crop up when comparing the modern day with The Past. However, I’ve begun to wonder how many of those views are actually based on fact and how many are based on what suits our take on the wider modern world. So, I’ve picked out a few of the ‘facts’ that I hear regularly aired and given them a thorough inspection – other opinions are, of course, available.

EVERYONE DID THEIR OWN REPAIRS

To disprove this statement, I didn’t have to look any further than my own family. My father and uncle both rode bikes for economic reasons but neither had an ounce of mechanical understanding. If they broke down (and they did), that would mean either