bike for Berlin

I bought my bike second hand and we went all the way to Leipzig to get it. Leipzig is the new Berlin now that Berlin is the new Seattle. I took my new bike to the bicycle repairman on the corner. Oh no, he said: this bike has a rusted frame. You’d better throw it away entirely.

Whut? I took my new second-hand bike to the swanky bike repair place on the park. Oh no, they said: this bike’s frame is rusted out. If you try to ride it, everything’s going to be fine until one day it collapses under you and you’ll end up with a broken back.

Whut! I took my new second-hand bike with the rusted frame to the Dutch bicycle place near where they sell excellent ice cream. Their pistachio ice cream is so good and so green that the first time I tried it, I actually gasped. The man who makes and sells the ice cream is tall and dark with dreamy eyes. He feeds me little samples across the counter on a spoon. No, no, said the Dutch place: with a rusted frame there is no point in repairs. You can try to fix it, sure. Then one day it’s just going to crack in half like a wafer. And down you’ll go.

Gosh. I wheeled my new second-hand rejected bike with its rusted frame home across the park. On a noticeboard outside the anarchist society library (“Shhhh! This is a library!”) someone had pinned a handwritten notice. Hej Berlin! Fahrradreparatur. Hey Berlin! Bicycle repairs. Call Maisie. (Let’s call her Maisie). I did.

Sure, she said, komm einfach mal vorbei, just bring it round. Maisie lived in a large, organised squat. The bell was answered by two giant punks on their way to walk their dog in the park, by the looks. Oh no, they said. There’s no bike repair here. Maisie said, I began, and the smaller punk stepped back and opened the door. Oh, then – it’s right down the hall behind the girls’ toilets.

Their squat had been a school. I went past the girl’s toilets and found Maisie in her well-oiled workshop. She was tiny and fearlessly tattooed. She welded a cross-brace to the frame and in three days I came back and paid her and rode my new second-hand rusted-out bicycle with its clever repair back to the Dutch bicycle shop. I bought it one of those festive Dutch bike baskets people thread with wreaths of flowers, which I had craved since I was a little girl riding a bike with green streamers. This was two years ago now and I have turned my whole life inside out. Better boyfriend, better apartment, better business, better income. I ride my bike everywhere and its sunny basket greets me when I come down out of the house in the morning, always ready for adventure. Every day we are building a Berlin life together, evading the potholes and skimming under all the trees, the one musketeer and her bicycle.