Last year I went on Facebook Marketplace looking for a shoe rack. I came home with a £100 pink tandem bike from a bloke called Mark in Somerset.

I’ve always been intrigued by tandem bikes. I blame my primary school, where as a six-year-old I was first  introduced to the assembly anthem A Bicycle Built for Two. Along with 150 fellow snot-bags, we sang about a chap of limited financial resources attempting to woo a lady called Daisy with just his trusty steed and unwavering self-belief.

Even then I remember thinking, Go on Daisy. Give him a chance!

Twenty years later I found myself in a surprisingly similar position. I’d cycled from the UK to Australia, arriving in Sydney with boundless optimism but equally bleak financial prospects. On that first night I met a firecracker called Susi and we were married three years later.

In those early years we rode a tandem together in Brazil and discovered fairly quickly that it isn’t the seductive form of transport the song had led me to believe. Less ‘looking sweet upon the seat’, more holding in farts, shouting at eachother and shins that looked like they’d been attacked with a cheese grater.

Which brings us back to the pink tandem I bought on Marketplace.