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BRIAN SAXTON (copied from the Telegraph)

Should the law be changed to allow a man to marry his bicycle?
This is becoming a pressing issue. Those who favour this reform
point out that it is plain to see that there is nothing more pure
and unselfish than a man's love for his two-wheeler. He will cherish
its ultra-light frame, swoon at its beauty, worship its multiplicity
of cogs and boast about its performance. This is definitely "the
one". After all, it was custom-built just for him.

He does his best to please it by dressing up in a special tight
bodysuit, the right shoes and the sleekest of helmets, so the
two of them can share that feeling of being aerodynamic.
.
Last year an Islington man eloped with his fold-up bicycle, deter-
mined to go through a form of marriage in Nottingham. They
travelled by train, but were intercepted at Leicester by police who
had been tipped off by the man's mother. It's believed he now has
secret assignations with a triathlon bike he keeps in a lock-up.

Traditionalists oppose the reform, because they believe that
legitimisingmarriage between man and bike would be just the
start. Soon men would be queuing up to tie the knot with their
sit-on mowers and super-duper headphones. There have been
vague hints that Parliament might be amenable to a form of civil
partnership, but campaigners are not satisfied with this. They
have an ally in the Bishop of Nuneaton. The “pedalling prelate"
wears vestments made of lurid Lycra, has a collapsible mitre to
make it less wind-resistant and lives openly with his mountain
bike. "Cycling, like marriage, is a matter of endurance;' he points
out.

The bishop has already composed an Order of Service for a
marriage between man and bicycle. They would vow always to push
on and to stay together through the grinding uphill climbs as well
as the downhill whizzes, in puncture and in health, till the peloton
overtakes them.

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