I was riding yesterday when it dawned on me.

When I walk into the garage and see it there, I view it not as a thing of joy but as a work tool; not one of those fantastic, beautiful hand tools that are crafted with care and precision though, but more like an expensive, clinical Bosch tool spat out of a series of bigger, more complex machines.

Friends have ogled the bike, in its carbon fibre, anodised glory; hazed by the smoke screen of technology.

But it’s disposable, ready to be replaced with the next better and greater bit of technology.

You can’t become attached to something like that.

It rides, fast, clinically, but it has no character.

It does not age, it wears out.

…It’s graphics are all I connect with.

After many years, I have come full circle and want more from my bike than something that does a job, no matter how efficiently.

I want to connect with it.

Feel as if it is more than the sum of its parts and a paint job spat out of some graphics department.

My bike should be something that shares my journey, my pain, my hunger.

And when I wheel it through the door, I should be able to look at it with pride and joy, not with indifference.