I write this because I was at the recycle the other week and I saw a man trying to dispose of a bicycle and asking the staff if they felt it could find a good home.  I immediately jumped on it, put it in the back of my car, and drove it home.

As readers will recall I’ve been toying with the idea of having an electric bike but have been asking myself, what do I really need it for? There are three types of electric bike, one with the motor in the front, one with a motor in the back, and one with the motor in the middle and that tends to have the longer range. Cheaper ones have a shorter range and can be heavy. Quality bikes are £1500 and up.

You get what you pay for and Chinese bikes are available for 500 pounds but try getting service and good luck to you. I don’t think quality bikes are available for much less than 1500 pounds though special offers are available from time to time. Anyway, I went along to the local Halfords branch here in Midsomer Norton  and met an extremely helpful employee called Jason, yes Jason of the Argonaut fame to recall a niche film of the same appellation.

There is a service in Halford’s where you go along without charge or obligation and have an evaluation on your bike

“ so we’ve got two punctures, the wheels have got loose bearings,  particularly bad on the front, your headset is very loose on its block, and is cracked and damaged, the front brake pads we no longer keep in stock. It’s a system that we no longer have  so the only solution is to replace the entire caliper. The gears do not work and the chain is beyond its sell by date so we are looking at a minimum of £130 The frame is very good.

I was given a full written report which I won’t bore you with but I was very impressed by this level of customer service.

If anyone wants the frame and can work on the bike then let me know
Brian @ pobox.com and you can come and get it

This brings up the general topic of intercepting people at the recycle and asking if you can have what they are going to throw away. Clearly, self evident items such as pots, planks, simple cupboards, boxes, are fair game but anything electrical has been thrown away for a reason, probably because it doesn’t work. No one throws away working items so you will probably find the cost of fixing exceeds the cost of buying a new one. This is a throwaway society and this particularly applies to products from China.

I have got lots of things in my attic that I don’t need any more and ideally would have a garage sale or garden sale. I don’t care about the money so much as finding a good home. The same goes for my books of which I have about 800, some of which are valuable to me.  One of these days I will get round to it. I am not holding my breath.

My partner and I celebrated being in Somerset for 12 years (escapees from London) and we went to Hartley’s cafe (look it up) were they had a Beaujolais day. The wine was £27 a bottle at the table but definitely had a superior pure taste and such expenditure once in a while was worth it.  We drove away on a cold but gloriously sunny afternoon but I’m sure the temperatures will fall below freezing this evening. I heard that it snowed in Cornwall.