Still steel

To Mount Faber, 53 km. I come across a group of roadies by the road as I do my laps up the hill. I stop to chat on my fifth and last lap. I know some of them but the rest are strangers. Which didn't stop them from offering me isotonic drinks and buying me lunch. Most of them are on steel (vs aluminium / carbon / titanium) bicycle, lovingly polished and maintained, gleaming and looking like new. One-inch tubing, with threaded forks and at least one bicycle with friction shifters on the down tube. These bicycles would be at least 20 years old. The riders are older - they'd lived in kampongs. Hence their name: Kampong Kakis. They're among the friendliest roadies I've ever met. Today, I wear my self-dyed arm warmers for the first time. Someone says it looks nice, though to me it looks like some creature died on it and decomposed, leaving splotches (yes, like roadkill!).