Frame
We assemble in the car park at Chandler’s Cross, just past the Co-op. It’s already 10:00 but Len’s running late. Naturally, we wait. Every Wednesday and Saturday we ride fifty miles or more, sixty or so in the summer. Sometimes Len isn’t late.

Brakes
Jamie’s sciatica, Andy’s audiology appointment, Gail’s about to become a grandmother. We’ll see them next time.

Revolution
Tubeless tyres, electronic shifting, GPS computers; we may be retired but we’re early adopters.

Rear Shocks
We turn into the straight we call the wind tunnel, three of us riding as hard as we can, inches behind each other. We still need to concentrate, but we learned to trust each other long ago.

Layers
Merino-wool base, windproof jacket. Len has a new girlfriend, Brian’s son is visiting, Suzie’s training for the Coast to Coast. Someone wants advice on pedals, another needs a torque wrench. In a muddy gateway, we show Joe, the new guy, how to put his tyre on without levers.

Fork
We carb-load in the café, joshing Jamie for calling today a “two-caker.” Suzie says the secret of long distance is “eat early and eat big.” We remember taking a picnic the year the Tour de France started in Yorkshire, waiting five hours for our heroes to flash past in seconds.

Jockey Wheels
We groan as Brian brags about that steep section at the back of the forest, when he took three seconds off his personal best, and got a King of the Mountains on Strava. Then we jostle for position to beat him over the next climb – a humpback bridge over the Caldon Canal.

Cranks
We regroup at the top of Thorncliffe Bank, assuring each other we must be mad. Then we battle on happily into the headwind, as the skies turn to pitch, the clouds swallow the hills, and we have twenty wet miles still to go.

Quick Release
We stop at the roadside memorial with its shiny gear sprocket below Sean’s name. We’d escorted him to the church in a silent two-wheeled crocodile, before lining up as his guard of honour. It’s the way we’d all like to go, slipping sideways onto a soft verge in the sunshine, lights already out. Any hill around here will do, any of the dozens of glorious views we know so well. Hopefully, we’ll get some more rides in first. We’re meeting on Saturday in the car park at Chandler’s Cross, just past the Co-op. Maybe Len won’t be late.

Chris Cottom lives near Macclesfield, UK. His work features in 100 Word Story, Bending Genres, Fictive Dream, FlashFlood, Flash Frontier, Gooseberry Pie, Leon Literary Review, MoonPark Review, NFFD NZ, New World Writing Quarterly, Oyster River Pages, Roi Fainéant, The Lascaux Review, and elsewhere. Find him at chriscottom.wixsite.com/chriscottom