The Man With Rubber Pedals
By McG,
It has all the latest fixings-- barrel hubs and narrow tread,
It weighs twenty pounds or under, is as rigid as the dead,
It's the very newest pattern and the very latest grade,
And it cost you all the cash that in the last three months you made,
You lead it from the agent's and your bosom swells with pride ...
As you lift it from the kerbstone and you start its maiden ride,
Like the lighting past the tram-cars, cabs and everything you've sped,
When you see a man with rubber pedals, plugging slowly on ahead.
He is sixty years of age, and on an antiquated crock,
Sitting upright as a soldier and as bandy as a jock,
He is wobbly, he is shifty and he scarce knows how to ride;
His gear is less than fifty, and his handle-bars are wide.
From crank to crank his tread is eighteen inches, and his frame,
Is a pattern that was popular when first the 'safety' came,
And as you gain upon him you are thinking "I must show,
How a good man, on a jigger that is up to date can go!"
So you fold your arms and pass him in an attitude of grace,
When the beatific smile across his open whiskered face
Makes your conscience somehow smite you as across his track you whiz,
Lest you show him perhaps too harshly what an utter mug he is,
And when you think that he's about a hundred yards behind,
That man with rubber pedals goes completely from your mind,
Till a darkness at your elbow and a rattling in your ear,
Shows the man with rubber pedals is still battling in the rear,
Then you think with some resentment, "This is not as this should be,
This man with rubber pedals, taking all his pace from me',
Such presumption is opposed to all the canons of the game,
And if I show him up, he's only got himself to blame".
So you drop your arms and lightly touch the neatly-nickled head,
With some ankling calculated just to kill that fellow dead,
But after half a mile or so, you are astound still to feel,
That man with rubber pedals hanging calmly on your wheel,
So you argue out the question, and you're bustled to confess,
That the man is what is technically known as N.T.S.
Still, for such as he to push you is a thing you can't allow,
He's asked for pace, and Holy Moses!, won't he get it now?
You drop your head twelve inches, grip your handles tight and lift,
As your calves and biceps swell, by Jingo, don't you shift,
Then you reckon you've left him and it's nearly time to slack,
When you hear the cursed rattle of his mud-guards at your back,
He can hold his own at sprinting - that is proved beyond a doubt,
So the only way to beat him is to simply wear him out,
You set a nice two-forty bat, and to yourself you hiss:
"That man with rubber pedals can't stand many miles of this."
Then the townships travel past you and the milestones rise ahead,
Till your thighs are working stiffly and you're feeling pretty dead,
Still you force your ped'ling even and your handle-tips you clinch
But the man with rubber pedals has n't shifted- not an inch,
At last, in view of "business" and the "fast approaching night",
You decide that 't is best for you to take the turning to the right;
And as you swing around he passes upright as the just,
With that beatific smile of his still glowing through the dust,
Are you cycling to Sans Souci?, He'll be there to "do you bad",
He is on St Kilda Rd and every Western camel pad,
Be you cycling in the country, be you cycling in the town,
That man with rubber pedals will be there to take you down.
