A little (Raleigh) Shopping
I don’t care if my scales say I’m 9st 2, my scales are lying. Either that or my mirror is as I am turning into a dumpy country thing and I have no intention of being fat and forty, so I think today I will run and then I remember this
is living in the garage, having arrived yesterday and after giving it a test run last night, decided it’s the best bike in the whole world, even though when I was given a pink Raleigh Shopper by my parents when I was about 10, I wasn’t very impressed, as I hankered after a racer like my brothers had and didn’t want to be seen on a stupid girl’s bike and especially a pink stupid girl’s bike with a basket but now I love my stupid girl’s bike and will even buy it a basket especially although I won’t be going so far as to spray it pink. and so I decide to take my stupid girl’s bike out for a couple of miles and then come home, get changed and go out for a run and so I get my SGB out of the garage and venture outside on a bike on my own for the first time in about 30 years and I get to the tree a mile away and I think I don’t want to go back yet, I want to go further and maybe I can do the 7 mile loop I looked at on gmaps but it was ages ago I looked on gmaps and I can’t remember what the route is and so I just keep on going and I see lots of bunnies and not dead ones this time and there’s a car coming up behind me and I try not to wobble and remember what Shaun said about they don’t want to hit me and it overtakes me and woo hoo, I don’t wobble and it doesn’t hit me and I go past a road and I wonder if I should turn off there but I still carry on going straight and I see some horses and I think that makes a change from sheep and I go past some houses that the owners probably think are posh but they look new and like they should be in Essex and after a while I get to a residential area and I think hmm, I think I’ve gone too far and so I turn round and go back the way I came and I can hear something behind me and I don’t know what it is but it sounds big and it overtakes me and it’s a trailer or something with HUGE wheels and I think I don’t want to end up under them and then I’m back at the tree and the road is very narrow and a car comes along and there’s only just enough room for both of us and I pretend not to be scared and then I’m home and decide not to run but because I am sort of hardcore, I try out our new rowing machine which is harder than the one in the gym and after 15 minutes I’m knackered.
Route
Stats:
Distance: 6.91 miles
Time: 40:53
Speed: 10.1mph
Calories: 212
Stupid girl’s bikes: 1
Bunnies: lots
Horses: some
Trailer things with HUGE wheels: 1
Rowing machines: 1
Runs: 0
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What a lovely bike! I keep thinking I should trade in my hard mountain bike with chunky wheels for something a bit more lady-ish. I rather like those Dutch bikes but they seem to be really expensive.
A rowing machine?! Blimey, you are going to be super, super fit, what with Juneathon and everything as well.
Loved the blog as I’ve also just bought the very same Raleigh shopper SGB off Ebay ! I fell in love all over again as I painstakingly cleaned it with wd40 and tried to look for a trademark showing the year of manufacture (hoping its 70s!). I am looking for a wicker basket and checked pannier bag for the back. I had a Raleigh shopper as a teenager – in irridescent blue and i loved it – even when my bro and his friends wizzed past me laughing and wheeling on their sooped up Choppers.. I am scared to venture out on it yet though – reasons because of ; A) feeling very silly, B) very unfit, C) feeling alone and conspicuous amongst all the dog walkers in the village. Anyway here goes. Let me know please if you know the approx year of manufacture.
You can find out almost anything about little Releighs at this site http://raleightwenty.webs.com/ . I also have a collection of photos on my site, but don’t have much technical info, I just photograph them because I love them.
I had one of these bikes when I was in my early teens – I was given it by my next door neighbour’s daughter (she was about 3 or 4 years older than me) when she got a new bike. It was my first proper “grown up” bike – well at least in my eyes it was lol.
love that bike! I have seen a lot of shoppers, but none with the actual word shopper on it! (I am from Australia so models are different). I so empathise with the SGB notion, my once beloved purple 26 inch that I got when I was 11 was an embarrassment by the time I was 13.