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stowaway
the narrative with which i am about to regale you is one that scarcely touches upon the circumstances enjoyed by mrs washingmachinepost and i. living as we do in palatial surroundings inhabiting regally decorated apartments above the staff quarters, the biggest decisions that impinge upon the daily travail are whether we should spend the evening in the east or west wing of twmp towers. this has become so much a case of disagreeable discussion of an evening that it often seems the only solution will be to draw up a rota. the current state of affairs almost equals the argument that surrounded in which dining room we ought to place the steinway.
it transpires, however, that the proletariat do not enjoy such fripperies, with far more pressing questions to be answered on a daily basis. arguments no doubt rage over who's turn it is to take the kids to school and whether the weekly shop ought to be done on friday eve or whether it will be necessary to run the gauntlet on saturday morning. and for those perhaps ensconced in what i believe the correct term is an upstairs flat, i should imagine that many hours of sleep have been lost over just where to put the bicycle(s).
i cannot deny that it would be less than fun to finally make it to the front door or stairwell to discover that leaving the chain in the big ring for macho reasons has proved something of an error, oil having transferred itself to any piece of apparel not coloured black. there's no doubt that a bicycle in the bedroom will lead to matrimonial strife, while one or two in the hallway is considerably less than pragmatic.
there are, however, several space solutions currently on the market, some of which are darned ingenious yet others often promise to create as many problems as they were designed to cure. though it's pretty hard to avoid a bicycle clamped to the wall, it's all too easy to catch your best sportwool on the empty, protruding clamp when the bicycle is elsewhere. i like to think that these iniquities have continually spurred the world's great thinkers towards designing the ultimate solution, after which we all sit back and offer a collective sigh of relief.
it's possible that ireland's stowaway might just fit the bill.
if i might describe the stowaway apparatus in less than technical terms, it consists of an upside down l-shaped wall mounted bracket that snugs its right-angle at the junction between the wall and ceiling. after fitting a harness to bars and seatpost, a counter-weighted pulley system allows those of you domiciled in modest accommodation to lift the bicycle heavenward. were the cycle to remain there, wheels ready and waiting for an accident to happen, i could understand any serious misgivings that you may currently harbour. however, raising it vertically is only part one; a second attachment connected to the lower part of the cycle then allows the opportunity to raise the bike laterally, leaving it pretty much flat against the ceiling and out of harms way.
clever, don't you think?
of course, as in anything that looks too good to be true, there's a but and in this case that but concerns the necessary cash to put the whole shebang into economic production. and to put it bluntly, that's our job. like many of today's ingenious ideas, there's currently a kickstarter campaign looking to raise €100,000 and at the time or writing, the stowaway folks are a bit short of their target with 13 days still to go.
if you no longer spend your weekends at the country mansion, or are living in compact and bijou accommodation until movistar phone with the contract details, this might be the very means of storing that disc-equipped, eps actuated colnago or pinarello when it's not on the roof of the team car.
friday 11 december 2015
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