JD and the bike.

Earlier this month I told you all about the revolution taking place with various people buying a Revolution Country Traveller bicycle. One of these people was John Donoghue known to his friends and workmates as JD.
JD phoned me up the other evening as he was having a problem with his bike. He had decided to upgrade the tyres on the Revolution (as I have done) and fit Schwalbe Marathon Kevlar Guard tyres. These tyres are rated highly but you need to be careful when fitting as they are mono-directional. JD was having a problem in refitting the rear wheel so that it would rotate without rubbing the brakes.
I happened to mention JDs plight to Jason Boynton-Lee who felt inspired enough by the tale of woe to put pen to paper and write a poem about it. I include the poem below.

Dear Trev I write this note to tell you 'bout my bike
For at the time of writing it's not a pretty sight
The wheels are running out of true,fouling the chain-stay
And I write this note to say why JDs off his bike today.

Upon delivery of the bike,new tyres I thought to fit
But mechanical ability have I not one bit
I stayed up and burned the midnight oil trying to do the job
The wife told me to get to bed and try to shut my gob!

Next morning I resumed the task,it took so very long
My knowledge of bike components is really not to strong
So I called you up,my good friend Trev-you are an honest maun
And I always value your advice and wise opinion.

In trying to fit those tyres on, the bike was upside-down
And looking back now I can see I may be judged a clown
Now with the wheels back in the frame and bike back up right way
The direction arrows on the tyres were pointing the wrong way.

My friends all think I'm very odd and though I have the gear
When tackling bike maintenance I've really no idea
At the end one thing I've learned and now shall share with you-
Leave these jobs down to the pros if you haven't got a clue!
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Jason tells me that the poem was inspired by the song 'The Sicknote' (Murphy and the brick)
It seems obvious to me that we now have our very own cycling team poet. I look forward to seeing what he comes up with during our ACR in June.
Those of you who know JD will be able to recognise the words in the poem as being the sort of thing that JD would say and you would also recognise the desperation in trying to get him to stop going on about it, highlighted in the poem by his Wife telling him to shut his 'gob'.