THERE ARE GENUINELY FEW DOWNSIDES TO borrowing bikes from proud – and indeed trusting – owners, as you may have guessed already. There’s the risk of falling off the thing, but given a decent level of riding competence and a familiarity with both the bike in question and the roads, it’s fairly unlikely. Over the last three decades of borrowing bikes – some of them considerably expensive, I think I’ve only dropped a couple. I dropped a BSA Gold Star in full DBD34 Clubmans kit simply because my left trouser leg got caught on the rearset footrest and my right foot skidded on deep gravel. No damage. Even the owner laughed as he helped lift the fallen Goldie.
A recurrent concern is that something expensively mechanical might let go. This has happened a few times and is one reason that I prefer to borrow bikes from traders! Next month, Editor Matt willing, I’ll tell you of just such a story…
Apart from mechanical mayhem, the biggest risk to me, personally, is that if I genuinely love the riding experience then I genuinely want to buy the bike. Not a similar example, no – that exact one. You might be surprised at how infrequently this happens, but it does. And if the test victim in question is nicely worn (should I write ‘patinated’?) and almost completely original, then the urge becomes terrible to resist. Assuming that the
