Aquilla's blog

Yesterday, I cycled to the train station in the morning like I do every day. I

When I arrived, I locked her up to a lamp post right outside the station. She was safely secured and was not an obstruction to any cars, other cyclists or pedestrians. I hopped on my train and though nothing else of my bike all day.

When I came home today, I got off the train and walked out to go and collect my bike and cycle. I noticed is that my basket wasn’t on my bike. I noticed it was on the floor next to my bike, the wire all pushed in and out of shape. I picked it up, pushed the wire back to more or less its original shape and put it back on its mount. I put my cycle helmet on and sat in the saddle.

I went to push myself forward and set off, but my bike jolted and didn’t budge. Odd

I dismounted and checked my brake levers, they were functioning fine. I span the front wheel, yep fine, I went to the back wheel and it would not budge, not even a bit. Luckily a fellow cyclist came out of the station and asked me if I was ok. I told him about my bike and he had a look at it for me. He said it wasn’t something that could be fixed on the spot and he said ‘It looks definite that there’s been some foul play here.’

I had to get my mum to pick me and my bike up and take us home. Upon inspecting the bike further at home, it looks worse then foul play, more like full on vandalism. The back wheel is very badly buckled, it’s completely lop sided. Also the wheel has broken spokes, dented spokes and is scratched up everywhere. My rear mud guard has also been snapped and my pannier rack was dented in too. The mud guard can be fixed and the pannier can be straightened out, but I think the wheel is damaged beyond repair.

So whoever it was that did this, it is quite clearly just an act of pointless and unnecessary vandalism. I even checked the bike lock, but it shows no signs of being tampered with. They didn’t try to steal it, they just wanted to be thugs and destroy it.

At first, I was furious, but now I just feel deeply saddened by it. I’m unemployed and I can’t afford a new wheel. Also it’s going to have a very bad impact on my weight loss and fitness routine. I am an overweight individual but I have changed my diet to healthy options and I have been using my bike to get exercise. It had been going great and I’ve had a lot of success with it already. But now, I’ve lost my exercise, I don’t know what to do. I have a weak ankle so I can’t go jogging or walking so my exercise is going to be cut of, god knows how long for.

I know it was an act of mindless vandalism and likely not a targeted threat against me, but I still just keep thinking ‘why me? Why would you do that to me?’ and of course, there is no answer.