This morning brought 43 copies of the HP newsletter, the arrival of which is of moment only to the geekiest elements of our technical team. Excitingly, this week it includes a life-size representation of a workstation. Be still my beating heart...

It's a beautiful morning, I should have cycled to work but of course I didn't. In fact despite living within a twenty minute commute of the office I have never cycled to work. Every day as I drive in I pass the same two guys resolutely cycle commuting and every day I catch sight of myself in the rear view mirror sighing the sigh of the abject defeated. I tell myself there are any number of reasons not to do it. There's nowhere to get changed, there are no showers, I share an office, it rains a lot here, I don't have time in the morning but yet...I know these excuses for what they are...excuses. I could always blame my equipment...so let's do that.

What should be my commuting machine is in fact an arthritic Raleigh Record Ace bought on impulse from Ebay. The vendor was a chap who usually sells used cars to gullible teenagers. I should buy a proper winter bike but now it's nearly spring what's the use? How much longer can the bad weather last? Well....given that this is Scotland the bad weather could last indefinitely so...

Like every other cycle magazine reader and occasional visitor to the bike porn website Rapha Babes I'm considering a fixy...or a single speed at least. £500 buys a goody but then...I catch sight of one of my old bikes- the Raleigh or (god forbid) the old Scot. Then of course, for such is the nature of foolish men, my thoughts turn, despite having once heard of Vintage Bike Restoration as God's way of telling you you have to much money and too few friends, to refurbishment. So, the frame on the Raleigh is 531 and only okay, no more. It's not worth saving and yet despite being fully aware it doesn't suit me and never will I can't bare to part with it. The Scot is different.

Flying Scot bicycles were produced by Rattrays of Murray Street, Glasgow. Not only do Rattrays no longer exist, Murray Street no longer exists. Like Edinburgh's St Mary's Close, Glasgow's Murray Street lies buried, somewhere beneath the Royal Concert Hall. The Scot had a reputation as a top class racing bike. They were built largely from 531, yet some like mine were made from the much rarer Accles and Pollock Tubing, usually silver soldered
http://www.accles.co.uk/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accles_&_Pollock
Because of this heritage I've kept it for years. Now whenever I think of buying a fixey the existance of the old Scot reproaches me like the ghost of Banquo - it would of course make a superb fixed project. Except...

It would be cheaper to buy a new bike. By the time I would send it to get refurbished at Atlantic Boulevard http://www.atlantic-boulevard.co.uk/ I'd already be two or three hundred squid hors de poche.Wheels? Gotta be hand built onto vintage Airlight hubs. £150? Bars...well I could get those GBs and the 531 stem rechromed for about £150...wait a minute! Who am I meant to be? Howard Hughes? No! Je suis Cyclo2000 and as usual more than averagely short of coin. Perhaps a new steed then...in which case should I buy a fixey at all? It's hilly in Scotland!

I'm going back to the start.