Sometimes you enter a world and you wonder whether it is real. It happened today; on the advice of a couple of cycling friends I had taken four wheels to be trued or rebuilt. Wheelcraft is a remarkable cycle repair shop in the attractive hamlet of Campsie Glen and hosted by a master wheel builder - Big Al. It was like entering a tardis. I was sent through from the front of the shop which was looked after by three bustling mechanics to the 'workshop' behind where Big Al was sitting in the window spinning wheels and telling stories as off centre as the wheels he was truing. He was surrounded by a cast of customers and enough wheels and cornucopia of cycle components to save the world.
Customers are friends and friends are customers in what is really a front parlour. The patter was eclectic covering favourite routes, worst roads, characters, bike components and everyday life. Nothing was hurried and after he found my wheels he began to true the last one. Requests for sprockets, chain wheels, brakes, spokes were all met positively and usually found eventually which is more a testimony to Big Al's memory than his storage system. Coffee was made and drunk, metric diced with imperial measurements and the world was trashed and then saved. We were informed that one cubic metre of sea water can provide enough magnesium to build a bottom bracket.
The audience rotated as more friends arrived on bikes to request an improbable bike part, drink free coffee and listen to the stories. This was a real coffee shop collective with no tables or staff but a lot more guffaws. It was like a cyclists edition of QI with Big Al directing affairs in the manner of Stephen Fry. Just don't tell him he's a national treasure.
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