Genetic imperatives number one: the fork dismantle.

There are certain things that men are programmed to do. It's not learnt behaviour, but actually encoded in that ol' double helix. I plan to share a few of them with the more sensible gender so that they might come to realise that men are not idiots through choice or indolence, but are, in fact, slaves to their ancestry.

Todays' genetic imperative: the fork dismantle.


At some stage in every man's life he will own a bicycle (Baby Girl enquires why they are called "pushbikes" - I shrug and say "IMDB it"). Usually that bike will be owned during late puberty. And at some point the owner will grab a spanner and rotate the handlebars through 180 degrees in two planes - turning them upside down and back-to-front. "Customising", it might be called, or "marking ones territory".

Having successfully engineered a situation where the handlebars will suddenly invert themselves just as the rider is attempting to overtake a bendy bus on the inside (or, in the case if this gene-slave, while attempting to hitch a tow on the passenger rail of a number 23 Routemaster Bus belting towards Barking Station at about 90 mph), the imperative takes further hold. Stick transfers from Airfix models of Messcherschmidt Me190s on the crossbar? Already done it. Clothes peg a playing card to the back forks so your bike makes the sound of a fat man's trousers surrendering at the seams? Kids' play.

No, there is one major operation that every male biker owner can, and indeed must, perform.

He will take a spanner, and undo the nut that attaches the front fork to the frames. When separated, he will find a circle of ball-bearings in grease. He will poke the ball bearings with a pencil, a screwdriver or, best of all, a finger. One of the ball bearings will dislodge. In attempting to replace it, the would-be pushbike ride-pimper will watch it disappear onto the floor. If found at all, it will be covered in: toffee papers; grit; guinea-pig droppings; small parts from the undercarriage of the Airfix Messerschmidt Me109 (perm any three from four). It will never fit back in. The front forks will never operate smoothly again. The bike will develop a distinct, and irrestible, right-to-left tendency which will one day send the idiot male headfirst into a hedge, a telegraph pole, or the path of a shopping trolley.

We can't help it.

We are made that way.

Unlike the bike, of course.