Trikeman

A story by Gareth with comments from Tim

Higgin’s Trike (image from Wikipedia)

Most of us are passionate about something.  It might be an all consuming leisure pursuit or just the passing flirtation with a hobby that has temporally captured the imagination. Whatever the extent of the commitment, however, the enthusiast will live for it, practice it as much as possible sometimes to the exclusion of everything else. By definition the devotee needs to be permanently or temporally besotted by it for it to qualify for the status of a true passion. While this phenomenon is not rare it seems to be a rather male preoccupation.

Women of course have interests; they seem, however,  to have a better ability to keep a sense of proportion about them. They are able to resist the all-enveloping pull that drags men beyond the reasonable into the realms of the obsessed. How many women, for instance, have devoted themselves to serial train spotting?

Travelled all over the Britain to collect train numbers? How many can boast of visiting over 50 percent of the UK's engine sheds in all weathers to personally hunt down obscure locomotives? Very few I suspect. My apologies to those readers who see this as perfectly normal behaviour.

My passion is cycling. Pretty mainstream with many of you no doubt but not necessarily shared by all. Which brings me to my point.  While cycling has a huge following and as my friends and family will bear witness I can confidently talk about it for hours it is important to remember that perhaps not everyone will be similarly enthralled. Indeed there are branches of cycling that are so specialized and so obscure that even the most ardent enthusiast might baulk at a long engagement. An adult Trike Rider, however, passionate, might for instance successfully bore the pants off mainstream cyclists in a very short time. This was made plain to me earlier this year during a cycling holiday in France with two friends.

When we arrived in Falaise, Normandy, it had been my turn to visit the campsite office to formally pay for our places. The office had not been open when we arrived and we had as usual gone ahead and found suitable pitches for the three of us and erected our tents. Outside the office, later when I went to settle our account, stood a bright yellow tricycle. Now this is an unusual sight and in France virtually unknown. It was loaded for camping and clearly belonged to an enthusiast.

A Higgins Trike with lots of innovative ways of carrying camping gear at first attracted my intense interest. Riding bicycles also loaded with camping gear I was immediately impressed by the way the trike rider could safely abandon his trike without having to find a substantial wall to lean against. Suitable free wall space is for some reason in particularly short supply in France. I wryly noted however, that he had had to apply his front brake with a nifty gadget to stop the whole machine running away on the slightest slope.

I was so engrossed for a time that I had not observed that the owner was now standing opposite me clutching a Carridice front bag. He was immediately delighted with my apparent interest in his pride and joy.  Obviously from the UK with an accent that vaguely placed him from somewhere in the Midlands he was soon up to speed with the merits of Trike riding.  The advantages of his Higgins over all other makes, details of the innovative upgrades he had made to his machine were all quickly explained.

Clearly used to having to defend this particular branch of cycling it was at this point that he started to suggest that trikes were in fact superior to all other forms of cycling. My attempt to say that the three dimensional presence on the road of a tricycle might be a disadvantage was quickly dismissed with a direct challenge to measure the width of my machine loaded with panniers. In his view my bike when loaded would be wider!

By now we had been joined by Tim and Philip, my two companions, who arrived to hear the tail end of this conversation. We quickly got the impression that ‘Trikeman’ (he was given this nickname in private because none of us had bothered to remember his name) believed that only he and his fellow Triky's had seen the light and that we clearly needed converting to his three wheel joy.

Back at our tents and safely out of earshot we were soon engrossed in an animated discussion comparing Trikes with Bikes. While it is perfectly reasonable to accept that others may have passions not quite in line with ours, generous acceptance of their point of view must rely on their tolerance for our choice of obsession. This guy, however, had broken the rules. He had rubbished our passion in favour of his own.

War just had to be declared. Why hadn't we tackled him about the increased rolling resistance of three wheels rather than two? What about the obvious disadvantages of cornering on a trike and the need to 'lean' the machine into a corner just to get round it? How come only a few British head cases persisted with this outmoded antiquarian abomination - a disguarded cycling design now shunned by the majority?

Mainland Europe had sensibly never adopted it and the Trike had only remained popular in a few UK Midland backwaters - Trikes by now should have gone the way of the dinosaur. Brimming with reassurance we were now ready for another confrontation, we had fully prepared our case, this time it would not be quite so one sided.

Our chance, however, never came. The next day dawned and our adversary had departed at the crack of dawn before we could confront him. To spot this so early was, in itself quite a feat. Philip, always the earliest riser in our group managed to report his departure well before Tim and I had quite come to. Never quiet about his early morning appearances Philip had been warned by both of us that even the rustling of his many plastic bags would not be tolerated before 7am - this piece of news was, he considered, worth breaking the rules for.

Trikeman popped up again, however,  at Lyon de Angers. He must, like us, have been on his way to the Semaine Federale. It was Philip who was first alerted to his presence on the same camp site. To his horror he had been mistaken in the washrooms for our rival, "so you must be the Trikeman,” a fellow camper had inquired - Philips immediate response,  "Do I look like a Trikeman," exactly summed up Philip’s view that the DNA of a Triky differs in every respect from a Biky!  Bristling with indignation Philip had rushed back to us to report the mistaken identity and was still muttering obscenities when Trikeman himself appeared. Still clutching the Carridice front bag (did he go to bed with it)  he invaded our space.

Conversation remained polite but a little strained and tense. Philip elected to disappear completely leaving Tim and I to cope with the invader. Plonking himself down next to me he claimed he was not keen on company, particularly on the road. "Well piss off then," I thought, but didn't say. Tim later remarked that he found it odd that Trikeman was choosing to go to the Semaine Federale where he would have to share the roads with thousands of other riders.

He had loftily claimed that he had known about these events for years but had not yet chosen to grace them with his presence. Lucky them – eh! Seeing me downloading information from my Garmin he commented that it was much better to rely on maps emphasising the point by patting the map case attached to his bar bag.

Trikeman was clearly beyond all reasonable hope of redeeming himself.  He had gone out of his way to undermine us and then sought our company to continue the process. There was no denying that we lived on different planets and while he might appear to be a fellow cyclist we seemed to have nothing in common. Nothing we could agree and share – what a pity. His passion had so consumed him he couldn’t appreciate that we were equally enthusiastic about what we did but unlike him were not prepared to exploit the differences.

On greater reflection the episode was not without value. Perhaps there were salutary lessons to be learnt here for every enthusiast. Maybe a Trikeman lurked in all of us. If our interests remained as narrow as his and one took every opportunity to impose them on others then the isolation that must come with it is deserved. On the other hand maybe his boorishness was the shell he needed to protect him from an increasingly complex and demanding World.  Like the hermit crab he perhaps wanted to remain a loner after all.

Tim’s comments:

You are so misguided to think women don't have any ludicrous passions! Clothes, Eastenders, handbags, makeup, chocolate... its far far more pervasive and slightly disguised compared to us mere men

You really are such a reasonable bloke. If I was writing this it would be full of uninhibited vitriol that would make Phil seem restrained. Trike man was a ludicrous caricature of the English eccentric and deserved to be described as such. Think of the crease in his shorts. If he lowered the zip on his Green Spot jacket would it reveal a tie?

In terms of the structure I think you limit the effect of this freaks obsession by starting to describe how we all have foibles. Concentrate on him and how he scared us.

This piece should focus on the bizarre nature of his existence and his lack of social or emotional intelligence. I use this to emphasise his style of behaviour, FORCING his OBSESSION on use and how uncomfortable we became. Our feelings, avoidance, furtive looks trying not to make eye contact, trying to look busy to encourage him to go, our contempt for Phil slinking off when you and I had to suffer etc should be heightened. The subsequent nervousness that we might stumble upon him around a corner. Looking for exit routes in cafes if he turned up and blocked the main door. 

Remember the creation of his name? Like a super hero speeding to save the world, not in his cape (like Superman/Batman) but on his machine. Not reasonable camping kit but a nuclear primus that had the power to destroy rogue asteroids.

Having said all this I must admire you for even attempting to write at all. Its very easy to criticise but you ask for comment! Do you read/listen to David Sederis? This is the line I think you should take. Just imagine you're talking to Phil! Reasonableness has to go. And don't me expect to do any better; I couldn't and don't cross me of your Christmas list please.