Sadelproblem

Nypan har skaffat ny sadel. Det påminner mig om den här berättelsen som kommer från en av dom roligaste böcker som nånsin skrivits om cykling, Jerome K. Jeromes´s "Three men on the bummel" från 1900. Den handlar om berättaren, George och Harris som ska ge sig ut på en cykeltur genom Tyskland. Harris har förslag på lite nya cykeldelar som behövs innan avresan:

I said: "It irritated me; it must have been worse for you.
Then there are saddles," I went on--I wished to get this lesson home to him.
"Can you think of any saddle ever advertised that you have _not_ tried?"

He said: "It has been an idea of mine that the right saddle is to be found."

I said: "You give up that idea; this is an imperfect world of joy and
sorrow mingled. There may be a better land where bicycle saddles are
made out of rainbow, stuffed with cloud; in this world the simplest thing
is to get used to something hard. There was that saddle you bought in
Birmingham; it was divided in the middle, and looked like a pair of
kidneys."

He said: "You mean that one constructed on anatomical principles."

"Very likely," I replied. "The box you bought it in had a picture on the
cover, representing a sitting skeleton--or rather that part of a skeleton
which does sit."

He said: "It was quite correct; it showed you the true position of the--"

I said: "We will not go into details; the picture always seemed to me
indelicate."

He said: "Medically speaking, it was right."

"Possibly," I said, "for a man who rode in nothing but his bones. I only
know that I tried it myself, and that to a man who wore flesh it was
agony. Every time you went over a stone or a rut it nipped you; it was
like riding on an irritable lobster. You rode that for a month."

"I thought it only right to give it a fair trial," he answered.

I said: "You gave your family a fair trial also; if you will allow me the
use of slang. Your wife told me that never in the whole course of your
married life had she known you so bad tempered, so un-Christian like, as
you were that month. Then you remember that other saddle, the one with
the spring under it."



Det skrevs alltså för 107 år sedan.. En fantastisk bok om att cykla fixie på grusväg genom Mellaneuropa. Rekommenderas. Hela boken finns förresten här