As a kid, I was never given a top end bike. What I was given was a bike. That was enough. A pair of wheelers, after the stabilisers were removed, working horseshoe brakes. A seat. Handlebars and no gears. I’d be a teenager before I discovered gears and front suspension via our Asa’s Raleigh Activator mountain bike. In my secondary school days, Mum worked hard to give me a brand new Falcon mountain bike.

I don’t remember the Falcon’s model name, but I quickly nicknamed it the Millennium Falcon. This Star Wars-inspired nickname was apt as the year 2000 would soon be upon us. Not that I cared, Dan, Pete, and I were off riding our chicken chasers wherever they’d take us. We’d ride Stockport Town centre, rich for empty hills, Lyme Park for the mud and glory, or the High Peak Canal to Buxworth because it was all there.

Over time, a succession of bikes came and went. Gerry Sheilds in Failsworth, as a friend of Grandad, and later Gerry’s son helped regularly. I had long ago learned that Evans and Hal-frauds were not the impassioned maintenance experts needed to keep a bicycle on track. Chris Shields provided a lovely Speeder hybrid by Merida, and its £1500 price tag in 2008-ish was not particularly comforting on the pocket. It served me well, exploring Essex, Norfolk, and the North West of England. A good bike enables confidence and exploration.

Fast forward to China, and after trying a crap Giant bike, I switched to a Merida 500 Duke and then a Merida Challenger, number not recalled. The latter was too short, but in China, frames were rarely available in large. I needed extra large. It did a job. The two Merida shops in Changping and Dalingshan did their absolute best to make the Dongguan Express its greatest available cycling experience. So much so that I even exported the ill-fitting bike back to the U.K. in 2022. Yesterday, it was donated via a bike shop to a better home.

That bike shop is, Never Mind The Bike Shops, and to be honest at first, the dated website looked cack. Bright but framed in the hypertext equivalent of antiquity. The colour scheme was eye-catching. The name definitely had my attention. I read on. I decided to investigate further. Before long, in summer 2023, I’d replaced one rupture machine for an Orro grit bike with some customisation. Inevitably, the 100 miles of weekly commutes necessitated a full service. That and shearing a pedal off. Later, it was upgraded to feature Burgtec pedals, made in Macclesfield. The quirky bike shop ran by Martin Dallaghan and Hutch is one of the very best community and independent bike suppliers I’ve ever encountered.

I’d use this bike shop over others for their dedication, experience, and expertise. And still, the ride goes on. So, where to ride next?