Ride a Bike
If you’d brighter days be stealing – Ride a Bike
For that ‘grand and glorious feeling’ – Ride a Bike
When you’re feeling kind of weary
And the days seem drab and dreary
There’s one way out that’s cheery – Ride a Bike
If you’d know the thrill of racing – Ride a Bike
The fleeting miles displacing – Ride a Bike
You’ll declare that nothing ever
Can your new found pastime sever
And you’ll pity those who never – Ride a Bike
If at holidays you’re touring – Ride a Bike
If you’d make each day alluring – Ride a Bike
There’s the Open Road before you
There’s the blue sky always o’er you
Why the more you’re out, the more you – Ride a Bike
If companions you’d be meeting – Ride a Bike
For you they have a greeting – Ride a Bike
If all these joys you’d win to –
If you’re troubles you’d cut in two
You only need begin to – Ride a Bike!
A Tale of Two Cyclists (Which summarises the story ‘Whacked’)
Two cyclists of our local clan
Now claim your kind attention
Each thought he was a superman –
Their names I will not mention
(They took me in their confidence
Believing that I had the sense
To hold my tongue, and I’d do wrong
Their names to even mention).
A tandem once they both bestrode
(‘Twas wild and wintry weather)
And just like supermen they rode –
So well they ‘nicked’ together;
And with the speed of Hercules
Aided by a goodly breeze
They crossed the vales, of Northeast Wales
So well they ‘nicked’ together.
A hundred miles they passed ere noon
The wind was strong behind them
And though they’d have to face it soon
‘Twas useless to remind them,
Not till they’d sighted Snowdon’s peak
Did they their mid-day luncheon seek
And while they fed, with pride they said –
“Our pals – how we’ll remind them!”
At last they started homewards bent
The icy gale before them
From slow to slower still they went
As quick the winds outwore them
With bodies chilled, and frozen feet
And faces cut with stinging sleet,
They tottered on, few miles they’d gone
Ere dark had fallen o’er them.
Oft beaten still, and always slow –
This was exasperation!
With yet o’er seventy miles to go
They reached a railway station
(Dear reader let me draw a veil
On how they joined the iron trail –
The truth is plain, the railway train,
Did save the situation.
Pride goes before a fall, you know,
If you out judge the distance;
And winds that first behind you blow
May soon give stern resistance
So let this tale a lesson be
When breezes speed you merrily
Each mile you tack, seems two more back –
And cyclists spurn assistance.
The above poem deals with a true story played out by Charlie and his tandem owning friend Jack on a December trip to North Wales. The story is related elsewhere under the title ‘Whacked’ (Page 164 in Volume Four of Charlie’s memoirs).
