The cyclist

Owners of 4X4s will know exactly how I feel about my Grand Cherokee. Its not so much a vehicle, its a passion. I spend every waking minute thinking about my beautiful vehicle and every spare penny accessorising her. The bull-bar kit I ordered came the other day. It took a couple of hours to fit but the result was magnificent. The Cherokee looked a totally different vehicle, I was as excited as I'd been the day I bought my first Jeep. I don't know why but I felt I had to go off for a drive there and then.

The roads around our neck of the woods aren't exactly of American proportions so you have to take it steady with a vehicle the size of the Cherokee. The lane between our house and the main road is the trickiest bit as the door handles almost touch the trees on either side in some parts. I was longer than usual getting down to the main road that day because I came across a cyclist. He must have been a fit young man, breezing along as he was at twenty five miles an hour.There was no way I could pass for three or four hundred yards until the lane widened enough for me to squeeze by.

I did get past eventually and made my way down to the junction with the cyclist keeping pace behind me. I waited patiently for the traffic to thin before turning right and heading off down the hill. I looked in my mirror and saw the cyclist right behind me. I glanced at the speedo - thirty miles per hour. I know enough about cycling to realize that he was 'draughting' the Cherokee. That is to say he was using my slipstream to reduce the amount of effort he needed to use to stay at that speed. I decided to accelerate smoothly to see just how fit this guy was.

Thirty-five, forty, forty-five. He was still there, right on my tail and grinning quite manically. Jeeze this guy must be fit I thought. The road started to drop a little more steeply and I'd seen enough of the Tour de France to know that a really fit cyclist can descend a hill at fifty or even sixty miles per hour. I accelerated a bit more, fifty, fifty five, sixty. He was still there, draughting so closely that I began to get nervous. What if I had to stop suddenly? This guy was going to be road-jam in seconds flat. Enough was enough. I changed down and floored the accelerator. Sixty, sixty five, seventy. I looked in the mirror - he was gone. My pulse soon returned to normal and I was able to enjoy a couple of hours touring in the summer sunshine.

I always wash my vehicles after a day out and this day was no exception. I filled a bucket with soapy water and set to. But when I worked my way around to the back of the 4x4 my heart leapt into my mouth. There, tangled in my shiny new bull-bars, were a set of drop handlebars from a bicycle.