Ummmmm.....

Our build has begun, and so have our attempts at learning a brand new language.

What's a flange?
Why does my brake cable need a nipple?
Where oh where does one find Birch flexi-ply?

Over the past week we have ordered steel, and stood awkwardly in a vast warehouse populated by a few, hard to find and rather taciturn men whilst it was cut to size. We have carefully and stiltedly read out our requirements to very helpful timber yards in Wales and Bristol like we are ordering from a menu in a foreign country. We have stood around, thinking, comparing, measuring and scratching our chins with our welder, Nathan, and have discussed the pros and cons of widths, wheels and wingnuts with our ever patient maker, Richard. On Tuesday we even stopped off between the bike shop and the metal yard to jump start a car. Hey, that's just how we roll.


It's a funny feeling, suddenly being without the right language. It takes all our courage to make each phone call or to step into each echoing workshop. We don't know the right words, the right questions to ask. And we are secretly elated when someone else offers to make the phone call instead of us.

But slowly, very slowly, we are finding our feet. We now say 'mil' instead of millimetres, and we don't even bother measuring things in inches. Pah, that's a mugs game. Having watched the frame grow out of the lengths of metal and bits of bike and having discussed flexi-ply 'til the cows come home, we are starting to understand a little of what we're talking about.  Which is a very good thing, because soon we will have a wonderful working barrow which comes apart into three pieces and needs to be reassembled lovingly and efficiently for each and every gig. And we will be ready, with an allan key (is that how you spell it?!) in one hand and an 8mm spanner in the other.

BRING IT ON!