Long Shadow

In 1910, the Allen Manufacturing Company of Connecticut, headed by William G Allen, launched a set of screws with recessed, hexagonal heads, along with hexagonal wrenches to tighten and loosen them. These are now ubiquitous, and universally known as Allen screws/bolts and Allen keys. Apparently the generic name is hex keys, but I only know that because I just looked it up, and I've never heard the term in the real world. Immortality of a kind

I have a tool box full of Allen keys - 4, 5 or more copies of some sizes. I have no idea where they all came from, I apparently have some mystical power of attraction. If only it were for gold bars. I have, however, just consciously bought a few new ones, designed to fit in the torque wrench that they came with - a tool I have only previously encountered in a Monty Python sketch. I have decided to take bike maintenance seriously (well, we'll see)

The last day before a week of biting cold. I don't have arctic cycling gear, so this was the last chance for a while to spin the wheels. I kept it simple - down the valley, across the stream, back up the other side - and fairly short. Even so, it was chilly enough the freeze the thumbs off a brass monkey. Well, that was the part of me that was coldest anyway, but this frostbite business needs to be taken seriously, you know!

Lunch and an hour or so pruning, then a bit of tweaking of angles and orientations to try to better fit the bike to the rider. This is where Allen keys and torque wrenches come in - they seem to be the thing on modern bikes

Suitably adjusted, and two degrees warmer, accompanied by a late, low sun, a second quick spin out was a more relaxed pleasure. A bike is a very intimate friend; it takes a while to become properly familiar with one another's foibles, but I have every confidence we are heading for a long relationship

In 1967, in an Emersonian spirit of mousetrap-improvement, someone designed the Torx drive, similar to Allen keys but star shaped, rather than hexagonal. There are sound engineering reasons why a star shape is superior - all to do with angle of force, plane of contact and the potential for deformation. But, over fifty years later, I have one Torx drive to set against my kleptomaniac stock of Allen keys. I'll call on the untroubled spirit of Bill Allen on some of the steeper hills