So I’m not entirely sure what I hope to achieve with this blog. If nothing else perhaps it will get the term ‘pubsteed’ better known, although since I adopted the phrase (someone used it in reference to a bike I was looking at on Ebay) I confess that I have strayed from its core values. More of which another time.
The trouble is that bicycles are something that it’s very easy to get obsessed with and, once you do, the concept of owning one that’s not actually very good is pretty hard to bear.
The purist of pubsteeds, of course, is a pig of a thing - the kind of half-ton Halfords mountain bike that you see locked up (or sometimes not) against a fence or railing and which sits there rusting for months, or even years, on end. The kind of bike that no-one wants to steal or ride, other than in desperation.
Maybe there’s a kind of halfway house - a ‘stealth bike’ of sorts, that looks grotty but which is in fact a joy to ride and has quality components.
Achieving this is much harder than it seems, of course, although plenty of people aspire to it.
A more likely outcome is that your bike is (or bikes are) something that you get attached to, treasure, improve, obsess over and wouldn’t leave unattended for more than a few hours, or maybe a day or two.
We shall see. Let the debate over what constitutes a pubsteed begin…
