Mick wrote ;
Don't know about North of the Border but when "Bonk Bags" were popular down "Sarf" we got our Mums or Girlfriends to make them out of deck chair canvas. Or chatted up one of the girls in fourth year needlework classes. Amazing the purchasing powers of ten Embassy! No "Southern Poseur" would have been seen dead with one of those trade jobs. How about the plastic ice cream flag as a cape and tub role to add authenticity to the Scott. Eldorado's were the height of fashion in our club. Lyons Maid and Walls for "Tuggoes".
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Ask Bruce, Glaswegians have always been poseurs ! - I might live in the "far" north-east now, but I was born in the lowlands where Irn-Bru, Caramel Wafers and cheese sannies ruled supreme. If you were cycling out for the day, (ask any Glaswegian - if you travel in any direction for 15 minutes you'll find yourself out in the country) you took a water bottle (the mankier the better) with water in it ! - a banana, a few sandwiches in cheese, jam or honey, and a big slice of fruitcake, neatly wrapped in your mothers best baco-foil, and stuffed into a "bonk" bag, along with a cape, a spanner, and a Dunlop puncture tin. If it was a cold day - when's it ever not, you took some tea and sugar and an enamel cup (I've still got the miners double-ended tin, as used "down-pit" for holding the tea and sugar) and a packet of Scottish Bluebell matches for a drum up, which, not surprisingly never seemed to stay dry. Tried once poking them into a cork, then poking the cork into the seat post, only for it to become permanently stuck in !
Learned the hard way using the my Dad's Bartholomew's cyclist map, (still have it with all the routes travelled inked in, much to my Dad's disgust) that cycling to places because it looked close on a map didn't work, when I discovered that Aberfoyle was considerably further by road than by crow, and that I didn't have the legs to get home, and that the local Police didn't take kindly to visits from wee boys with big bikes needing the sag wagon (i.e Dad's 62' Austin 1100) to get home !. We had these nifty wee clear plastic cycling capes, that were dirt cheap, but made you wetter inside than out, and a copy of the local paper for the cold wind, stuffed up your jumper. My first real cycling jersey was too big - my Mother had my Dad convinced I'd grow into it - probably because they'd paid a few bob for it. I never did grow into it, it just stretched bigger ! - Even now as I watch the European Pro's deftly move all the stuff from the bag into their pockets in a few swift moments whilst still keeping up the pace, I marvel at how the bag never ends up flying between the front tyre and the downtube as mine always seemed to, making steering problematical.
Tried searching ebay for a cheap Musette, but at $255 I guess the Louis Vuitton one's are for worse poseurs than me. Mind you we always loved the trade team printed stuff they sold - the more foreign sounding the better - then everybody would know you were a real pro, just like big Ted, what a machine !
p.s. Up here, tuggoes are "Gringo's" and ride Gringo bikes...
Bob Reid
Stonehaven
Scotland