With a trip to Amsterdam coming up at the end of this month I have been spending a lot of my time day dreaming about the canals, pancakes and bicycles. Combine this with the recent sunshine we have been experiencing here in the UK and I thought it was about time I got my own bicycle out from its winter hibernation.
My bicycle itself is something heavily inspired from my many trips to Amsterdam and is more than just little bit different to your standard road bike. It's a true European city bike in the sense that it is a fixed gear coaster bike. To you and me that means that there is not a single gear, only a front break and you have to peddle backwards to slow down/stop. Before buying this bike I hadn't even been on a bicycle for the best part of 10 years so you can just imagine my face when I took it out for its first ride and nearly rode into the side of a car, I had completely forgot that you had to peddle backwards to stop and was petrified of pressing the front break and going over the handle bars - real smooth.
A couple of years on now and I have really come to love this bicycle. Last time I visited the Dutch capital I spotted this bike and couldn't help but take a photo of it and it is an image that has stayed ingrained in my mind since. So much so that I decided to customise my own bicycle with the help of some artificial flowers. (Can we make pimp my bicycle a thing?) I decided against going the full hog and covering the entire bike in flowers as riding a bike like that around Peterborough would probably result in some idiot shouting profanities and you receiving the middle finger. Not quite what I have in mind for my relaxing bike rides or trips into the city centre thank you very much.
As a result of that I decided to concentrate on the handlebars and picked up the pink version of this flower garland from The Range. The main reason for buying this was the fact that it already had green floristry wire attached to each individual flower meaning that all I had to do was twist them off the garland and then twist them straight onto the handlebars of my bicycle. Finding that garland made the whole process a whole lot easier but it is something you could easily do yourself if you have the right tools.
What do you think of my floral handlebars? The cutest thing you've ever seen or just plain tacky? I personally think it is a fine balance of the two but thats the beauty of it, I can just twist them on or off depending on my mood or the occasion. I am really hoping for some more nice weather this weekend to really christen my new and improved bicycle, what a better way to do that than with a picnic by the river and a spot of Pimms? Perfection!
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