Ah the humble Alan Jenkins, a business teacher, who always orders a flat white to have in, except that one time when he ordered a cappuccino to take out and threw the whole world out of balance. Of course, for the purpose of this blog (and his job), we’ll say that on a school day Alan orders his coffees after 3pm when school is finished, and definitely not before then (because we have never seen him in Rockets during school hours, loitering around a new drop of bikes…)
Alan is a feisty road cyclist who tried to fob me off with a story that his first interests in bike related activities started out with Mountain Biking. It’s a likely story, believable almost, a lot of cyclists first started out on a mountain bike and then moved across to road cycling, (except Steve Parry – we’re persuading him to go the other way, so he’ll stop dropping us all on rocket rides). But then Alan showed me this picture, so we all know where that the true love for bikes really started…
Whilst Alan may look like the quiet type, to sit in the corner and gratefully drink his coffee, here at Rocket and Rascals, we know the true story. We’re not lying when we say he’s a feisty rider, he’s a drop and I must get this KOM on Strava kinda guy. He is also the kind that if he were to crash his new bike the first time he was riding it, that out of anger, he might just smash his helmet on the floor and have to ride home with no helmet feeling incredibly embarrassed…
Alan has an impressive number of rides under his belt, covering over 18,500 miles. Rides mixed in here include century rides, the Rockets 2018 Jan Fondo, Flanders, a ride where his handlebars snapped clean off their stem (bloody Halfords) and most recently the incredibly soggy RideLondon which he completed in an impressive 4 hours and 16 minutes. But not being funny Al, strava says you only did 97.46 miles, so hop on your bike and get the other 2.54 miles in.
For Al-boy, Rockets really is a place his life and his gorgeous family’s lives revolve around, and we can see why too: the man has 10 bikes and a shrine for us! Most of his bikes he keeps at home, with one or two at school, but sometimes he hides new bikes from his wife… His latest achievement was hiding a Cannondale CAAD 10 track bike for 8 months from Millie, what a selfish bey (his words not mine)!
But really, rarely a day goes by where at least one of the Jenkins crew isn’t represented here at Rockets. It’s the core to his leisure time. He held his 40th birthday party here, a lot of his friends cycle with the Rocket Riders Club, his mum and dad grace us with their presence, (not often enough if you ask us, we like them more than you bey), and what really makes our heart jump with joy is that if he’s ever in a bad mood he can head down here and be transformed back into ‘Happy Al’ from the great coffee and fabulous workers (and no we didn’t pay him to say that).
Bey, you are a true Rocket-eer! You never fail to make us smile when you bring yourself and the girls in, who we hope discover road bikes soon and geddon with some boss ass girl races!
Words: Cordelia Roberts
2 comments
Just seen this, cheers mum and dad…. Chapeau Rockets for creating such a lovely hub for not just cycling but for family and get together time.
We are very proud of Alan he works hard to accomplish his goals and never gives up. Even as a child he would never let his friends down and always turned up at all the team events he was involved with.
We love the coffee and atmosphere at Rocket’s and Chris and the girls make us laugh and make great coffee.