Banzai Free Wheeler Roller Skates

Learning to skate, in my 40’s, how hard could it be…

Cheap skates, on Ebay, what to do? They don’t make ’em like they used to, at least that’s hat I told myself when I saw these vintage skates listed on Ebay. These were the type of ‘roller boots’ I would have dreamed of when I was a kid, the type I’d admire when my parents bought me ‘roller skates’. Roller. Skates. Those metal adjustable skates that would strap over your shoes. You know the type, wheels as hard as the concrete you’d skate on, bearings with as much lateral play as rotation, the type of skates that would land you on your face if they even looked at a piece of grit. Those skates. But, not these skates, these skates were the real deal. How could I resist a bargain. After all, I never did learn to skate, but now

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Merlin TDB bike on canal bridge with narrowboats
Bike

A bike of mine: Merlin TDB

Inexpensive yet valuable One of my favourite bikes is this Merlin TDB. I bought this one from Ebay a fair few years ago as a frameset, building it into a full bike using spares from

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