When my bike came to a clanking and clattering halt, I was not impressed.
It was ruining my Sunday morning routine - a trip to the dairy for the Sunday newspaper, digested over a coffee at a nearby cafe before a return home to more mundane affairs.
Fortunately, although the noise of the derailleur snapping off was spectacular, none of the snazzy lycra-clad cyclists whizzing past me in all their high-viz glory noticed me.
Wearing garishly striped polyprop long johns and riding a 30-something-year-old weather-worn 10-speed makes you magically invisible to real people.
I wish I'd realised that before now. I could have used it to my advantage in my journalistic career. Imagine what I could have discovered without risking any cellphone-hacking scandal.
The sight of me, bike at the ready, sifting through anyone's trash wouldn't hasten any famous personage to attempt raising an expensively tortured eyebrow.
When I presented the shattered bike to a son for diagnosis, I was surprised at his conclusion.
It was time for the great leap backwards, he told me, but not exactly in those words.
"How would you feel about a one-speed?
"he asked tentatively, quickly pointing out it was a move both he and one of his brothers had taken on their mountain bikes.
I love that young man. I would have kissed him, but he is not keen on such overt displays of motherly affection.
"You're talking my language," I said, or something equally inane.
He was well aware gears have been more or less a mystery to me and I only ever used two. Going up hills is not part of my ideal cycling experience. I have never quite grasped the point of having your legs whirring round at a million miles an hour, when it would be faster to get off and push.
In his meticulous way he explained in more detail than I could really grasp what would be required to alter my bike to one-speed trendiness.
As well as my gear problems, my bottom bracket (nothing personal apparently) was full of dust and the grease within had turned to tar. A cable snapped when he tested my brakes. I tried to explain I rarely go fast enough to require brakes, but he was not impressed, possibly because he lives near Baldwin St.
To help the great leap backwards, I had to leap on to another son's many-speed bike to see what speed would suit.
True to form, I only managed to find two of the 24 speeds and was too frightened to use the brakes properly lest their unaccustomed working catapulted me embarrassingly over the handlebars.
I think I found a comfortable cadence (hell, I'm beginning to sound like a real cyclist - I'll be breaking out the lycra next) and he assured me he would do some maths and come up with something which would be comparable on my old dunger.
I can't wait.
There is something reassuring about retaining an old friend, even if you haven't looked after them properly. When bits are not falling off it, it is still a comfortable bike and I have no desire to swap it for something snazzier.
My delight at the downgrading of my bike made me realise I am becoming more and more curmudgeonly about much of the "progress" around me.
I want to give all those featuring in the Electricity Authority advertisements about how much you could save on your power bills a good slapping - after dramatically ripping those irritating sticky notes off their foreheads.
Having had electricity reforms foisted on us by dear old Max Bradford years ago, we have not played our part as good little consumers and frequently switched power companies to get the cheapest deal. Consequently, many of us are paying more than we could and should be for power.
The market has not worked.
The solution? Get a snazzy campaign complete with silly sticky labels, charge the retailers $5 million a year to fund it over three years and try to persuade us naughty consumers who have not been playing the game to sort ourselves out.
Apparently, people are taking note of the campaign and saving money. Good for them. But why should any of this be necessary?
Why can't we all just be automatically provided with a basic commodity like electricity at a reasonable cost without this nonsense of constantly worrying if we are getting the best deal?
Some of us have better things to do with our time.
In my case it will be happily riding on Otago Peninsula in my long johns on my one-speed thinking uplifting thoughts, which will not include worrying what to do about the impending obsolescence of my television with its rabbit's ears and my ancient cellphone. Invisible magic indeed.
- Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
