False promises
For once, it hadn’t rained at night and my tent was dry in the morning. The sun was out and beating down. I put sunscreen on.
This auspicious start was a deception. Soon the sun was hidden behind grey clouds.
Because I had ridden so far yesterday, I would actually be able to reach my scheduled stop a day earlier than planned. I was stopping in Milton-Keynes to visit some friends. Today, I just needed to make it to the pub, and they would meet me there.
I decided to start the day cautiously, sticking to the roads. I was wary of getting a pinch flat on my under-pressure tire.
The traffic convinced me to stick to the route as planned. The road threaded through villages, carrying traffic to each one in turn. Unfortunately, it was not wide enough for larger vehicles to pass me, so invetibaly, a truck or bus would get stuck behind me, creating a backlog of traffic until I could pull over and let them pass.
I grew tired of this, and rejoined the yellow line on my GPS. Of course, the path I picked for this turned into a steep climb, a set of steps, then a barely traversable bramble patch.
The route itself turned into a succession of short and steep climbs, but, because this section of the route was wooded, they offered no satisfaction. Instead of the expansive vistas of yesterday, a summit was just a reduction in effort.
The route went through forests where I was constantly getting lost, and backtracking or detouring the find my route.
It was annoying.
Backtracking
When the route joined asphalt again, I passed a “ROAD CLOSED AHEAD” sign. Rashly, after my successes of yesterday, I pressed on, and was greeted by a clearly impassable road. I had stumbled onto a construction site for HS2, England’s long-overdue, and vastly over-budget second high speed rail line.
There was no choice here, I had to backtrack.
I grew more annoyed.
This feeling was only magnified just a few kilometres later when I realised that I was missing a glove. I hoped that I had just misplaced it in my bags, but I was not optimistic.
I was properly annoyed now.
Food!
After a descent, I looked for a cafe. I decided that I needed a break. Luckily there was a cyling-themed cafe a few hundred metres away.
A coffee and a soup raised my spirits.
The route however did not improve. I was approaching Luton and a long stretch of urban riding. Things would only improve once I had made it to the other side. A nice stretch, crossing fields, raised my spirits.
Food!
On the last stretch of my route, I rode up a kilometres long traffic jam. Up ahead, I heard the regular thumping of a slow engine and got a whiff of a coal fire. I was puzzled.
The cause became apparent: a steam engine, pushing a stately 8 km/h was making its way up the road.
I was nearly at my destination: a small town pub in which a few friends would join me when I felt that dreadful wobble in the rear of my bicycle. I had a flat again.
I’d fix it after the pub.
By the numbers
- Ride Started
- 09:05
- Ride Ended
- 21:00
- Distance
- 111 km
- Time Moving
- 6h 15m
- Time Elapsed
- 8h 06m
- Elevation Gained
- 1266 m
- Distance so far
- 1812 km
- Riding so far
- 104h 58m
- Elevation so far
- 20635 m
Dave
After a couple of pints at the pub, and a home-cooked meal, we headed off to meet Dave, the cyling fanatic next door. I wanted to fix my tire and switch it back to tubeless. I was hoping to find a compressor, and I would sort my self out.
Dave, was rather more hands on. I fixed the tire, and whilst I started to fix the inner tube I had punctured earlier in the day, Dave started working to re-seat my tire.
When the tire proved too stubborn, and after remarking that my tire was balding, he pulled out his stash of tires, and dug around until he found one that fit. The third tire he tried was a charm. UNlike my original, rather worn tire, this on still had grippy treads. It was an upgrade!
For payment, he would only accept a round of beers.
I happily obliged.