… Yesterday was down as a 40mile bike ride originally, we planned to go to Windsor. However Joe was feeling enthusiastic and thus we decided to go to Oxford and back, which is pushing 70. Beautiful run on route 5 from Caversham over the Chilterns. I then got a puncture in possibly the windiest place in South Oxfordshire. Undeterred we (or rather Joe) fixed this and continued, although we realised we’d missed a turning. We found our way again and passed the Wittendem Clumps.
Feeling confident in our ability to overcome minor set backs such as poor navigation and bike breakages we approached the beauteous Didcot Power station. By now somewhat hot and sweaty we rang a friend to meet for lunch in Abingdon. Were looking forward to revisiting old haunts having lived in Abingdon for 3 years.
However there was a sudden load crack and Rachel’s saddle flew off. Cartoon images of a very fat lady breaking her seat came to mind. We discussed our options and decided that had it been the real ride we would go on to the nearest bike shop and get an emergancy repair, but given that we had started late (9.35 following a BBQ the previous day) we would head back to Didcott station and get the train home.
Fortunately it turned out that a £4 kit repaired the saddle, but it didn’t raise confidence in the reliability of my bike… fortunate then that we’ve just splashed out on two very shiney beautiful bikes, that should be ready to collect in the enxt couple of days.
Will add photos to this post once I’ve found my camera