Tynan is home with a twisted front wheel, some eeny weeny roadrash and a powerful stink of stale sweat which the people on the train from Liverpool Street to here must have loved
New bug Simon from the CTC forum, resplendant in Team Cambridge cycle top managed to get a puncture by pushing bike across 20 yards of grass as we were about to start. the production of his pump attrcated two riders who asked to borrow it, they had a pump but didn;t know who to use it ...
no DD would be complete without me falling off, this time the newly spiffed bike had its idiot rider slot the front wheel into a narrow but deep trench between the tarmac and the verge proper, resulting in a rather splendid forward rolling sumersault from the rider and the front wheel being impressively pretzeled, sterling work from Simon bending against a nearby telegraph pole improved it to very badly buggered indeed, things were looking bleak until Simon, bless him, remembered a chance remark from Steve at London Fields, there were two spare wheels in his camper, bleonging to Alex (bless him)
Steve had bagggsied the rear after breaking a spoke on the way to the start but the front remaining, lots of calls and texts to Steve and his delightful daughter resulting in them driving back from Dunwich where they'd just arrived with the wheel, brilliant, the production of Steve's track pump stopped not one but two couples who asked or a go on it, none of the four had a pump
So off we went again from what we were fairly sure the utter back of the entire ride, we passed some sights back there let me tell you
we passed and reapassed the chap on a colossal cargo bike, carrying amongst other things in a huge basket, a springer spaniel that seemed to be having a huge night out, as he passed us as we had a small rest with fifteen miles to go, I told Steve we should wait to give him a bit of lead so that when we passed him, he'd have no time to get back at us, it worked like a dream
Steve, his daughter and the prospective son in law all worked like Trojans to feed, beer and water us, Alex supplied a wheel, daugher and PSIL drove an extra 80 miles in the dark to bring me the wheel, the rest of them made sarcastic remarks and quips at me when i got there, Simon stayed with me the two plus hours I was stranded, all I put back in was lots of loud bad jokes
I managed to wangle a lift back on the furniture trucks, they wanted someone in every truck that 'knew where Smithfield was', ludicrously they found me the most plausible and I went in the lead truck, I slowly realized that meant knowng a route to Smithfield suitable for a large and long vehicle, after a tortuous route involving three seperate squeezings of a huge truck through a tiny gap, the truck driver wouldn't speak to me any more and i scarpered pronto before the other drivers caught up with me
I can't say I noticed a tail wind, I thought I was ridng very well, other than falling off, again
All good
