The Bike Lock

Another mishap I got into in my youth. I'm aware that I appear incredibly stupid, and I'm not confident in my ability to convince you otherwise. Make of it what you will.

As unbelievable as it seems to my current self - even someone who cycles a lot - I used to be a cycle courier. Not a motorcycle one, but on a push bike - a Condor¹ fixie  to be exact, the steed of choice for the discerning cycle messenger. 

It was exhausting but quite well paid work and I did it for a bit in between jobs. You carried around a large messenger bag, a bike lock and (at the time) a radio to communicate with base. They radioed you, you picked up the package, and then cycled it round somewhere else. Most of the time it was documents and tapes for dubbing or broadcast. I wasn’t that good at it because I was quite risk averse and not terribly quick but back in the day it was a good way for a young lad - without a huge skillset - to get some money in his back pocket. I was picking up shifts at a restaurant and doing this as well. 

Oh to have boundless energy.

I lived in Barnes at the time which is a strange area of London. If it weren’t for the red buses and the planes landing at Heathrow every half hour or so (so low that I swear I could see people buying onboard duty free) you imagine that you lived in a small village in Oxfordshire. It had a village green, a duck pond and a band stand. The houses are little two up two down cottages that are so twee they could be in an episode of Midsomer Murders². I lived in one of those cottages with two flatmates. It was tiny, had a back garden barely big enough to swing a cat in but we liked it. We shopped at the green-grocers, butchers and candlestick makers and it was all quite surreal. It was (and is) - obviously - deadly expensive and really pretty but I could never understand why anyone would actually buy a house there. 

Because, you know? Planes.

Sometimes I would meet friends for a beer at one of the pubs on the river, near Hammersmith. The beer was normally terrible, but the views were great - one of those seminal London experiences that is miles away from the tourist bedlam of central London; sipping beer as rowers pass and couples walk arm and arm down the embankment. On a Friday after pulling a shift or coming off my bike? Well, there was nothing better.

Condor bikes were hand made and (I don’t know about now) quite cheap - as long as you could live without gears...and brakes...and a comfy seat. But, what they lacked in equipment they made up for in sheer sturdiness. They were virtually indestructible. In my time in London I had had a couple of bikes stolen so I decided to invest in a heavy duty lock that the company promised was theft proof³. As my bike was part of my livelihood, I figured it was worth the investment. 

The problem with my theft proof lock was that it was big and heavy. I was loath to carry it in my document bag in case I crumple the contents. I tried wrapping it around the frame but it took too long to wrap and unwrap it and as a cycle courier time is money. I tried wearing it like a sash like some form of Steampunk Miss World, but it was too uncomfortable and kept banging against my chest in an uncomfortable fashion. So I did what every other courier did and locked it around my waist. Back in the day, my waif-like waist could easily accommodate a chainlike bike lock - with room to spare.

So, being a balmy Friday, after zinging through the streets of Soho, Covent Garden and Fitzrovia I had (literally as well as figuratively) earned a beer. I coasted down from ‘town’ (as we called it then) via Sloane Square and The King’s Road. Happy days.

I rode to a suitable location on the river to tether my bike to, put my key in the chamber of the lock and - ping! - my key broke off in the lock. I looked down at it vacantly, then looked around for some help of which none was forthcoming, and then tried to pick at the remainder of the key but it was absolutely flush with the barrel of the lock. Like it was designed to be like that.

I thought, ‘fuck it’ and figured I was going to have a beer come what may and tried to slide the lock over my hips. It was too tight. Like: ‘not a chance’ tight. I tried pulling it over my head but it got up to my ribcage and just went: ‘nope.’ 

Hmm.

Obviously, I went for a beer anyway and just sat outside (to stop my bike getting stolen) with the lock around my waist not admitting to anyone that I had shackled myself to…myself. When the evening chill descended I bade my farewells and wobbled my way home along the towpath of the Thames thinking of how the hell I was going to get this bloody lock off of me.

When I got home the house was quiet, none of my flatmates were in. So I ran upstairs and tried - I mean really tried - to get the lock off of me. I contorted myself into numerous positions, pulled and squirmed but to no avail - this thing was here for keeps. I got naked and hopped in the shower and slathered myself with shower gel. I got cleaner but no freer.

Feeling stupid - but also feeling like I was out of all viable options - I did something that I regarded as a total last resort: I was going to call emergency services.

I really did not want to. I had heard all the stories about people ringing 999 for utterly moronic reasons. Just do a cursory search of the internet and you will find people who have rung because of paper cuts…or they ate a mouldy tomato…or they swallowed too much bottled water and they thought they might drown.  

I did not want to be one of those people.

But my problem was I didn’t know what to do and also I was not sure which emergency service to go for. 

An ambulance seems a bit of a gross overreaction so that was out…but I don’t know if an ER would have an angle grinder or something - they must take casts off people all the time? I could just walk to my nearest one.

Police? They must have some pretty deep and inside knowledge of how bikes are stolen, what tools thieves use and what would be the most effective way of using said tools. But then again, are they more about catching criminals than being the criminals themselves?

Fire Brigade? They are constantly cutting people out of burning cars and freeing kids who have stuck their heads through the school railings, they must have tools up to their eyeballs?

In the end I just rang and asked.

‘What emergency service do you require?’

‘Um…I am not really sure. Maybe you can help me?’

I described what had happened.

‘Oh, okay…do you not have a spare key?’

‘Yeah, I do, but the key broke off in the lock…so I can’t get the key in,’ I tucked the phone between my shoulder and ear and rifled through a drawer that I thought the key was in and found my spare…for what good that would do me.

‘Are you in any immediate danger?’

‘No - and I am willing to walk to whatever emergency service I need to to get this sorted - I just need to know which one.’

‘Okay…let me just ask another operator,’ she put the phone down. I heard a clunk and she obviously wheeled her chair over to someone who would help her out on this one. I just about heard the conversation on the other side of the phone which went along the lines of:

I got some lad on the phone and he had locked himself around the waist with a bicycle lock.

What the hell did he do that for?

He says he keeps the lock round his waist.

What? A d-lock?

No, a chain lock.

Can’t he just slip it over his head?

He said it won’t fit.

Has he got any lube?

I didn’t ask, not everyone has lube, Janice. (some laughter is heard in the background)

Well, ask him!

I heard the phone being picked up again. ‘Hi love, do you have any lube?’

‘Lube?’

‘You know? Lubricant?’

‘Like a sex thing?’

‘Yes. Like a sex thing.’

‘No,’ I said, feeling as if I had failed in some way.

‘Do you have butter?’

‘Butter would work...let me get it.’

‘You should probably take your underwear off…because of, you know, chafing.’

‘You want me naked, rubbing butter on myself?’ I pulled down my boxers and was now just in my socks, holding the phone to one ear, my boxers pooled around my ankles. I lifted up the butter dish and scooped up a healthy dollop and started smearing it around.

‘You can probably slide it off now easily.’

‘Well it’s moving, it’s hard - but this might work!’

‘Ahem!’ I snapped my head around. My flatmate, Erica, was leaning against the hallway wall with a smile on her face, ‘you dirty bastard, I wanted to see where this was going but I don’t like this at all - that butter is communal!’

‘Thanks, I’ve got to go, you’ve been a big help, bye,’ I slammed down the phone. We had one of those old school, rotary phones and it made a satisfying tring! sound when it hit the cradle. I yanked up my boxer shorts. ‘I can explain - ‘

‘What you do in the privacy of your own room is your own business - ‘

‘- I’ve got my bike lock stuck around my waist, I was on the phone. 999. They made me smear myself in butter so I could slide it off. I’m not some…some kind of pervert!’

‘Gimme a minute.’

She climbed the stairs and after rustling around in her room for a bit she returned with a bit of lego and a tube of superglue and got the key out in seconds. 

‘You dimwit.’

Who needs emergency services when you have a camera tech as a flatmate?

1. Condor is a London bike company that was founded by Monty Young and has been making bikes since 1948. They specialise in making bespoke, steel bikes for UK racing teams, but also bikes for urban use. A fixie is a bike that has no derailleur and no back brake. Minimal maintenance, maximum torque but tough on the hills. They now make much fancier bikes but are still very much true to their roots.

2. For any American readers: this is a show on ITV in the UK about a place called Midsomer and it has so many murders it’s like The Bronx in the ‘80’s. It’s a hybrid of The Great British Bake-off and The Wire. Generally, the more innocent the person seems the more likely they offed the Reverend with the meatcleaver in the rectory.

3. It was called a Forgetaboutit by a company called Kryptonite. It was made out of a magnesium alloy. Not sure if it was totally theft proof but it certainly felt like it.