Against
all odds The ‘Derailleur Code’
continues to entertain and baffle all those
that believed cycling was just about buying
quality brands of lightweight parts at the
best possible price.
The
story so far. Cycling historian Professor
Claude B Dawes finds himself hired by Dr Moeller
(of the M7 Human and Alternative Powered Vehicle
Company) on a mission to hunt down Der Bromptonaut,
an agent of the mysterious ‘Brotherhood’.
This shady organisation is sworn to the elimination
of all bikes that don’t fold and anyone
that stands in their way. Dawes now believes
that his evil opponent has been able to make
a copy of the top secret M7 AM10 36 spoke
hub - a bike part so powerful that it has
to be kept moving to avoid going ‘critical’.
In
a previous chapter the ‘code’
simply gave co-ordinates to a large out of-town
retail park near Varberg, Sweden. Thanks to
the 'Brotherhood' this has now become a large
hole in the ground. As the party pursuing
Der Bromptonaut head north on the Swiss Bike
Patrol’s specially chartered train,
things take a turn for the worse. Professor
Dawes' enjoyment of a Schubert piano sonata
(played on the train’s very own Bösendorfer
piano) is interrupted by the resulting ‘outage’
that has brought much of western Sweden to
a halt. Dawes and Lucyna have now taken to
the rails with the M7 state of the art Ultratandem
Velomobile (equipped with 'wire guided' steering
locked by GPS to the perfectly laid track
work of Swedish railways). Their aim... to
get to Varberg in record time, avoiding traffic
jams and tiresome big hills. Meanwhile back
on the train Moeller, Wallender and the Bike
Patrol consider their options. ‘Man
in black’ Herr Braun watches and notes
that the last three chapters have been written
in total darkness with more than a few inaccuracies.