Black blackwork tattoo of a bicycle inside a chainring with the text Phil 4:13, on a person's calf.

Bicycle in a chainring on a calf

Blackwork · Calf · Black and grey · Photo

A bold black tattoo shows a bicycle silhouette inside a large toothed chainring, with the words Phil 4:13 printed below the bicycle. The linework is solid and filled, with no visible shading or grey tones. The tattoo fills most of the frame on a calf, shot against a tiled floor.

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dennis Hallam had fitted chainrings to other people's bikes for thirty-one years, and he could tell a tired one from the sound it made under load. The Thursday club run had left Ferriby Hill with a chain that skipped on every climb, and young Kieran Doyle stood in the workshop doorway with his frame over one shoulder, saying he had a time trial on Sunday and no money for parts.

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Dennis took the old ring off with a bar and a grunt. Inside the crank arm, beneath the grease, someone had scratched a line into the alloy years before: Phil 4:13. "My dad did that," Kieran said. "The week he stopped drinking. Said it every time he got on the bike after, like it was the only thing he knew for certain." Dennis turned the ring to the window light, checked the worn teeth one by one, and didn't reply.

They worked through the afternoon while the radio talked about rain. Dennis would not take money for the ring, only a promise that Kieran would bring the bike back on Monday with his finish time written on a card, the way the old lads used to. Kieran rode off past the church at dusk, and the pedals turned over smoothly for the first time since spring.

On Sunday the cloud sat low on the moor. Dennis stood at the summit with a flask and a stopwatch, and when the rider came over the crest the chain was quiet beneath him. Kieran lifted one hand from the bars, not in celebration, just a small nod, and freewheeled down the far side into the grey. Dennis watched him go, then went back down to the shop to sweep up the filings.

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