School holidays. You’re out on your bike again. It’s an old black one your Dad brought home from the dockyard. It has no gears, no lights, front brakes only and a bell that doesn’t work. It’s not the birthday present you prayed to Jesus for, but it’s the only one you have. You do the usual circuit first: speeding up along Rosebery Avenue so that you can climb the steep hill at Arrol Place, turning sharp left at the top of the hill, picking up speed again along Dundas Avenue, careering down the hill at its end, turning sharp left again and returning to where you started. Then you do the circuit again and again and again, always seeking to be faster than the last time. And all the time you’re careful not to apply the brakes lest you’re catapulted over the handlebars. Sometimes you’ll go the whole length of Rosebery Avenue, taking the hill at William Black Place. Other times you’ll make a detour round Lawson Crescent, pedalling as fast as the wind through Apache territory. Occasionally, when you feel really brave, you’ll venture down Queen Margaret Drive and along Station Road, where there’s always a lot of traffic, unlike the other streets. Those are the circuits you ride hour after hour, day after day. By the time you return to school after the holidays, you’ve developed enormous calf muscles that are clearly visible below your short trousers. So much so that the other boys call you Bagpipe Legs.
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