Palimpsest

What is it? It's a manuscript that has been erased and rewritten, but where the original text can still be traced. The word is sometimes used to describe something where many layers of something have been laid down, one top of the other, each new layer only partly concealing the last. What's this got to do with bikes eh?

I've been accused a many times of not looking after my bikes. Of being 'the world's laziest mechanic', and best of all, of 'neglecting that singlespeed to within an inch of its rusty life.' None of this is true of course. I'm not a bike geek, I'd much rather spend an hour riding than fettling in the garage and this shows. I don't have that fascination with new bling bike bits that most of my riding buddies thrive on. Superlight wheel sets, tyres for every conceivable type of mud, lights that turn night into day, forks that have more knobs than a Boeing 747? No thanks.

I've got my old singlespeed. It's only 4 years old, but looks older. The frame is scuffed, scratched and dented. Every mark on it tells a story, from the big rock dent on the downtube to the bare metal on the chainstays caused by my wonky pedalling style. Some parts of the frame have hardly any paint left at all, like the dropouts in the picture. I could get it resprayed, but then I'd be covering up the layers of memories trapped in all those scratches, it is my palimpsest after all.