BICYCLE BELL

So I’m still walking everywhere (when not on the Interdimensional Omnibus, of course). Thankfully the weather is nice enough, and there’s plenty of room to think. I do have a question though, that I wouldn’t otherwise have thought of:

What happened to the bike bell?

Yeah I’m serious. Back in the old days, you could be ambling along a lane, or hopscotching the paving stones, when suddenly from behind, you’d hear the cheery tring of a bike bell. Not loud or piercing, just a short burst of mechanical bell, peeling out from a politer age.

Not so these days. The bike bell is gone. Today’s pedestrian has to train their hearing toward the whirring of wheels behind them, and then move swiftly out of the way for hooded youths and helmeted commuters on fancy cycles.

Yesterday, one young man overtook me doing a wheelie. I’m not quite sure what he was trying to prove. But then, I’ve never really been sure what wheelies mean.

I’m not even sure the postman uses a bike bell any more. I mean, he should, obviously, just like he should whistle from door to door. That too seems a dying art.

But the bike bell at least does have a use! Long before the midwife, or vicar, or schoolmistress arrives at your heels, you can anticipate and move left! It’s harder to do when they’re closer, but a bell would ring out through the leafy birdsong and let you know that you were about to be overtaken.

I think it’s sad the bicycle bell is disappearing. Just like a cheerful hullo or a summery whistle, that sound of happy old England seems to be behind us. Which is ironic, but also a shame.