The "Photos From Today's Ride" thread...
Discussion
yellowjack said:
It had already been a bit of a bad day. Several punctures had, erm, punctuated the ride, and I was feeling jolly pleased with myself for having bought a fresh puncture patching kit at my bike shop stop. I'd already received assistance from a couple called Don and Angie when I was struggling with a multiple puncture between Tadley and Newbury, being taken into Don's garage for some dry work space and a coffee.
Being daft, and determined to manage a 'proper' (not namby-pamby kilometres) century for June, I continued west instead of turning for home. After riding Combe Gibbet and Walbury Hill, I then headed down and home. On my way down Post Office Road, Inkpen, I shifted into the big ring at the front, as the road straightened up and conditions were more conducive to building a little more speed.
Then my Garmin told me I was headed the wrong way, so I turned round. At which point it corrected itself, so I turned round again. After stopping to try to decipher which direction was correct, I moved off and within about 200 metres everything went catastrophically wrong. Another shift to the big ring actually overshifted off the chainring, and then there was an ungodly noise from the rear and I came to a grinding halt. The mech hanger (a part of the frame, in this case, not a break-away item) was bent in two directions. The derailleur cage was twisted into a very odd shape, and the chain had broken and dumped one link onto the floor.
I was some 40 miles or so from home (although I ended up riding a fair bit more than that due to poor route selection) and it very much looked like 'game over' for the bike. I pulled and twisted the derailleur as much as I dared, and rejoined the chain with a spare snap-link, but there was no way I could get the tensioner wheels to line up, so the chain wouldn't run through. I had a 'Leatherman' tool and was doing my best with the pliers, but to no avail. So I decided to split the cage, thinking that straightening one plate at a time might get a better result. When I came to bolt it back together the bolt holes were out of alignment, and I was ready to give up and try to walk to Newbury.
That was when a local chap called Phil pulled up in his car. He was just arriving home a few yards up the road, and offered his garage and some basic tools to help, made the tea, and held the bike straight while I worked at it. In the end I managed to use the tapered handle of an 'F type' spanner, tapping the inner cage plate down it to get the holes lined up. Then I put the thing back together, tested it briefly, and said I'd ride home. Phil, bless him, had offered me (and the bike, in his estate car) a lift to Basingstoke to get a train home. Foolishly I declined and even made a daft route selection, initially heading south/south east in the correct direction for Basingstoke, before inexplicably heading north again to Newbury which added an extra 7 miles and additional strain to the weak chain.
I'd been out since 11:45am, and it was 10:26pm by the time I'd paid for fresh batteries and a 'back-up' front LED light at Tesco in Newbury. At that point I'd been trying to retrace my route out, but the last straw was a pinch-flat on a pothole on the road alongside Greenham Common. Luckily I wasn't too far out onto the common, so headed back to the last streetlamp to fix the flat. That's when my (near hysterical) wife phoned to find out "where the hell" I was, and a barney on the phone ensued. I was about ready to give up at that point. There was one train left out of Newbury, but there was no connection to Farnborough available until the next morning. It looked like I might end up walking home. That was when Rachel and Molly, a divorced mum and her 18 year old daughter, came home from work/shopping, and decided to walk the short distance from their house to see if I was OK.
I ended up spending an hour in their house, calmed myself right down, had a coffee and a clean-up. Rachel even insisted on making me a packed 'lunch' to go on with, if you can belief that? Ham sandwiches, Hulahoops, Quavers, and a Nature Valley cereal bar! She also persuaded me to abandon my plan to re-trace through Tadley, and to hit the main A339 to Basingstoke. I was glad I took their advice too, the road was smoother, the gradients kinder, and there was more in the way of vehicular company and street lighting. In the end I made it to within half a mile of home before the chain snapped again, and I finally dragged myself up the driveway at 3:04am on Wednesday morning, 15 hours 19 minutes and 105.7 miles after I left.
Bad? Ill-advised sheer bloody mindedness to keep going despite the drip-feed of setbacks through the day. The bike, my 20 year-old well loved steel bike is very much worse for wear. My failure to keep my wife informed of my whereabouts as each disaster unfolded has definitely earned me my current place in the dog-house.
Good? I kept going. Perseverance paid off in the end, I got back under my own steam. I learned that it doesn't pay to throw in the towel in the face of apparent disaster. Unbelievably, I managed, with a few basic tools and a little external assistance, to repair that twisted mess sufficient to carry me to within sight of home. My "one century ride per calendar month for every month in 2016" personal challenge is still on course. It may have been spread over two days, and taken twice as long to complete as it should, but it was one ride, and it counts!
Best of all? Meeting Don, Angie, Phil, Rachel and Molly. Every single time I had a new disaster, and I was at what was a very low ebb, one or more of these magnificent strangers stepped up and offered assistance. Don's garage full of tools and classic motorcycles, Angie's welcome cup of coffee to warm me up. Phil's garage, tools, tea, and offer of a lift to the station. Rachel and Molly's approach was perhaps the most surprising, and delightful. They were two women with no man in the house, it was gone 11:00pm, dark, and I was a lone male stranger. What started as the offer of a coffee turned into a mood lifting chat, food, and the opportunity to clean up before carrying on. These folk turned any negative feelings about the ride, and about "modern, selfish society" on their heads. All contributed to my being mentally and physically capable of continuing, and for this I am truly thankful. Without them I have no idea how, and when I would have got home.
One final photo to finish the tale...
The bike as it is now, bent derailleur, broken spoke, slashed tyre and all. But hey? I got home without so much as a broken fingernail, just in dire need of some soap and water. Happy now to put this debacle behind me, enjoy my weekend at the Chalke Valley History Festival, and come back to the bike(s) afresh next week to plot what repairs/replacements are needed...
(Apologies if it's a bit long, but no one part of the tale would really make sense in isolation. Thanks for reading!)
FFS, give me a call next time I would have come and picked you up and dropped you home. Bloody mentalist.Being daft, and determined to manage a 'proper' (not namby-pamby kilometres) century for June, I continued west instead of turning for home. After riding Combe Gibbet and Walbury Hill, I then headed down and home. On my way down Post Office Road, Inkpen, I shifted into the big ring at the front, as the road straightened up and conditions were more conducive to building a little more speed.
Then my Garmin told me I was headed the wrong way, so I turned round. At which point it corrected itself, so I turned round again. After stopping to try to decipher which direction was correct, I moved off and within about 200 metres everything went catastrophically wrong. Another shift to the big ring actually overshifted off the chainring, and then there was an ungodly noise from the rear and I came to a grinding halt. The mech hanger (a part of the frame, in this case, not a break-away item) was bent in two directions. The derailleur cage was twisted into a very odd shape, and the chain had broken and dumped one link onto the floor.
I was some 40 miles or so from home (although I ended up riding a fair bit more than that due to poor route selection) and it very much looked like 'game over' for the bike. I pulled and twisted the derailleur as much as I dared, and rejoined the chain with a spare snap-link, but there was no way I could get the tensioner wheels to line up, so the chain wouldn't run through. I had a 'Leatherman' tool and was doing my best with the pliers, but to no avail. So I decided to split the cage, thinking that straightening one plate at a time might get a better result. When I came to bolt it back together the bolt holes were out of alignment, and I was ready to give up and try to walk to Newbury.
That was when a local chap called Phil pulled up in his car. He was just arriving home a few yards up the road, and offered his garage and some basic tools to help, made the tea, and held the bike straight while I worked at it. In the end I managed to use the tapered handle of an 'F type' spanner, tapping the inner cage plate down it to get the holes lined up. Then I put the thing back together, tested it briefly, and said I'd ride home. Phil, bless him, had offered me (and the bike, in his estate car) a lift to Basingstoke to get a train home. Foolishly I declined and even made a daft route selection, initially heading south/south east in the correct direction for Basingstoke, before inexplicably heading north again to Newbury which added an extra 7 miles and additional strain to the weak chain.
I'd been out since 11:45am, and it was 10:26pm by the time I'd paid for fresh batteries and a 'back-up' front LED light at Tesco in Newbury. At that point I'd been trying to retrace my route out, but the last straw was a pinch-flat on a pothole on the road alongside Greenham Common. Luckily I wasn't too far out onto the common, so headed back to the last streetlamp to fix the flat. That's when my (near hysterical) wife phoned to find out "where the hell" I was, and a barney on the phone ensued. I was about ready to give up at that point. There was one train left out of Newbury, but there was no connection to Farnborough available until the next morning. It looked like I might end up walking home. That was when Rachel and Molly, a divorced mum and her 18 year old daughter, came home from work/shopping, and decided to walk the short distance from their house to see if I was OK.
I ended up spending an hour in their house, calmed myself right down, had a coffee and a clean-up. Rachel even insisted on making me a packed 'lunch' to go on with, if you can belief that? Ham sandwiches, Hulahoops, Quavers, and a Nature Valley cereal bar! She also persuaded me to abandon my plan to re-trace through Tadley, and to hit the main A339 to Basingstoke. I was glad I took their advice too, the road was smoother, the gradients kinder, and there was more in the way of vehicular company and street lighting. In the end I made it to within half a mile of home before the chain snapped again, and I finally dragged myself up the driveway at 3:04am on Wednesday morning, 15 hours 19 minutes and 105.7 miles after I left.
Bad? Ill-advised sheer bloody mindedness to keep going despite the drip-feed of setbacks through the day. The bike, my 20 year-old well loved steel bike is very much worse for wear. My failure to keep my wife informed of my whereabouts as each disaster unfolded has definitely earned me my current place in the dog-house.
Good? I kept going. Perseverance paid off in the end, I got back under my own steam. I learned that it doesn't pay to throw in the towel in the face of apparent disaster. Unbelievably, I managed, with a few basic tools and a little external assistance, to repair that twisted mess sufficient to carry me to within sight of home. My "one century ride per calendar month for every month in 2016" personal challenge is still on course. It may have been spread over two days, and taken twice as long to complete as it should, but it was one ride, and it counts!
Best of all? Meeting Don, Angie, Phil, Rachel and Molly. Every single time I had a new disaster, and I was at what was a very low ebb, one or more of these magnificent strangers stepped up and offered assistance. Don's garage full of tools and classic motorcycles, Angie's welcome cup of coffee to warm me up. Phil's garage, tools, tea, and offer of a lift to the station. Rachel and Molly's approach was perhaps the most surprising, and delightful. They were two women with no man in the house, it was gone 11:00pm, dark, and I was a lone male stranger. What started as the offer of a coffee turned into a mood lifting chat, food, and the opportunity to clean up before carrying on. These folk turned any negative feelings about the ride, and about "modern, selfish society" on their heads. All contributed to my being mentally and physically capable of continuing, and for this I am truly thankful. Without them I have no idea how, and when I would have got home.
One final photo to finish the tale...
The bike as it is now, bent derailleur, broken spoke, slashed tyre and all. But hey? I got home without so much as a broken fingernail, just in dire need of some soap and water. Happy now to put this debacle behind me, enjoy my weekend at the Chalke Valley History Festival, and come back to the bike(s) afresh next week to plot what repairs/replacements are needed...
(Apologies if it's a bit long, but no one part of the tale would really make sense in isolation. Thanks for reading!)
Edited by yellowjack on Friday 1st July 11:51
tuffer said:
Yes, and ditches at the side of the road after you get hit by a truck in the dark!!!
Well I got back OK. No ditches or lorries were harmed in the making of this epic saga!As an aside, now that my 'wet weather program' bike is out of action, my planned trip west will have to wait for decent weather and the carbon road bike, or be a trip down on the train with the MTB. I'm hoping that July will dry out a bit, so that I can ride out your way down the Test Valley, to take advantage of the scenery on the way...
yellowjack said:
CoinSl0t said:
yellowjack said:
From Tuesday's nightmare...
So what happened there then?Being daft, and determined to manage a 'proper' (not namby-pamby kilometres) century for June, I continued west instead of turning for home. After riding Combe Gibbet and Walbury Hill, I then headed down and home. On my way down Post Office Road, Inkpen, I shifted into the big ring at the front, as the road straightened up and conditions were more conducive to building a little more speed.
Then my Garmin told me I was headed the wrong way, so I turned round. At which point it corrected itself, so I turned round again. After stopping to try to decipher which direction was correct, I moved off and within about 200 metres everything went catastrophically wrong. Another shift to the big ring actually overshifted off the chainring, and then there was an ungodly noise from the rear and I came to a grinding halt. The mech hanger (a part of the frame, in this case, not a break-away item) was bent in two directions. The derailleur cage was twisted into a very odd shape, and the chain had broken and dumped one link onto the floor.
I was some 40 miles or so from home (although I ended up riding a fair bit more than that due to poor route selection) and it very much looked like 'game over' for the bike. I pulled and twisted the derailleur as much as I dared, and rejoined the chain with a spare snap-link, but there was no way I could get the tensioner wheels to line up, so the chain wouldn't run through. I had a 'Leatherman' tool and was doing my best with the pliers, but to no avail. So I decided to split the cage, thinking that straightening one plate at a time might get a better result. When I came to bolt it back together the bolt holes were out of alignment, and I was ready to give up and try to walk to Newbury.
That was when a local chap called Phil pulled up in his car. He was just arriving home a few yards up the road, and offered his garage and some basic tools to help, made the tea, and held the bike straight while I worked at it. In the end I managed to use the tapered handle of an 'F type' spanner, tapping the inner cage plate down it to get the holes lined up. Then I put the thing back together, tested it briefly, and said I'd ride home. Phil, bless him, had offered me (and the bike, in his estate car) a lift to Basingstoke to get a train home. Foolishly I declined and even made a daft route selection, initially heading south/south east in the correct direction for Basingstoke, before inexplicably heading north again to Newbury which added an extra 7 miles and additional strain to the weak chain.
I'd been out since 11:45am, and it was 10:26pm by the time I'd paid for fresh batteries and a 'back-up' front LED light at Tesco in Newbury. At that point I'd been trying to retrace my route out, but the last straw was a pinch-flat on a pothole on the road alongside Greenham Common. Luckily I wasn't too far out onto the common, so headed back to the last streetlamp to fix the flat. That's when my (near hysterical) wife phoned to find out "where the hell" I was, and a barney on the phone ensued. I was about ready to give up at that point. There was one train left out of Newbury, but there was no connection to Farnborough available until the next morning. It looked like I might end up walking home. That was when Rachel and Molly, a divorced mum and her 18 year old daughter, came home from work/shopping, and decided to walk the short distance from their house to see if I was OK.
I ended up spending an hour in their house, calmed myself right down, had a coffee and a clean-up. Rachel even insisted on making me a packed 'lunch' to go on with, if you can belief that? Ham sandwiches, Hulahoops, Quavers, and a Nature Valley cereal bar! She also persuaded me to abandon my plan to re-trace through Tadley, and to hit the main A339 to Basingstoke. I was glad I took their advice too, the road was smoother, the gradients kinder, and there was more in the way of vehicular company and street lighting. In the end I made it to within half a mile of home before the chain snapped again, and I finally dragged myself up the driveway at 3:04am on Wednesday morning, 15 hours 19 minutes and 105.7 miles after I left.
Bad? Ill-advised sheer bloody mindedness to keep going despite the drip-feed of setbacks through the day. The bike, my 20 year-old well loved steel bike is very much worse for wear. My failure to keep my wife informed of my whereabouts as each disaster unfolded has definitely earned me my current place in the dog-house.
Good? I kept going. Perseverance paid off in the end, I got back under my own steam. I learned that it doesn't pay to throw in the towel in the face of apparent disaster. Unbelievably, I managed, with a few basic tools and a little external assistance, to repair that twisted mess sufficient to carry me to within sight of home. My "one century ride per calendar month for every month in 2016" personal challenge is still on course. It may have been spread over two days, and taken twice as long to complete as it should, but it was one ride, and it counts!
Best of all? Meeting Don, Angie, Phil, Rachel and Molly. Every single time I had a new disaster, and I was at what was a very low ebb, one or more of these magnificent strangers stepped up and offered assistance. Don's garage full of tools and classic motorcycles, Angie's welcome cup of coffee to warm me up. Phil's garage, tools, tea, and offer of a lift to the station. Rachel and Molly's approach was perhaps the most surprising, and delightful. They were two women with no man in the house, it was gone 11:00pm, dark, and I was a lone male stranger. What started as the offer of a coffee turned into a mood lifting chat, food, and the opportunity to clean up before carrying on. These folk turned any negative feelings about the ride, and about "modern, selfish society" on their heads. All contributed to my being mentally and physically capable of continuing, and for this I am truly thankful. Without them I have no idea how, and when I would have got home.
One final photo to finish the tale...
The bike as it is now, bent derailleur, broken spoke, slashed tyre and all. But hey? I got home without so much as a broken fingernail, just in dire need of some soap and water. Happy now to put this debacle behind me, enjoy my weekend at the Chalke Valley History Festival, and come back to the bike(s) afresh next week to plot what repairs/replacements are needed...
(Apologies if it's a bit long, but no one part of the tale would really make sense in isolation. Thanks for reading!)
Edited by yellowjack on Friday 1st July 11:51
Do you get paid per word... :-)
yellowjack said:
Well I got back OK. No ditches or lorries were harmed in the making of this epic saga!
As an aside, now that my 'wet weather program' bike is out of action, my planned trip west will have to wait for decent weather and the carbon road bike, or be a trip down on the train with the MTB. I'm hoping that July will dry out a bit, so that I can ride out your way down the Test Valley, to take advantage of the scenery on the way...
I am around until end of July and then off to France for a few weeks. Would be great to hook up for a ride, know some nice areas around the Test Valley.As an aside, now that my 'wet weather program' bike is out of action, my planned trip west will have to wait for decent weather and the carbon road bike, or be a trip down on the train with the MTB. I'm hoping that July will dry out a bit, so that I can ride out your way down the Test Valley, to take advantage of the scenery on the way...
Just back from an amazing week in Les Arcs, with The White Room:
Totally blown away by how fast my Dune XR was on both the natural trails and the Bike Park stuff:
Spent a totally RAD day at Pila in Italy, OMG, the runs their are stunning, including a 11Km all downhill smasher of a black run down off the top all the way down into Aosta in the valley below!
knackering, but a great weeks riding ;-)
Totally blown away by how fast my Dune XR was on both the natural trails and the Bike Park stuff:
Spent a totally RAD day at Pila in Italy, OMG, the runs their are stunning, including a 11Km all downhill smasher of a black run down off the top all the way down into Aosta in the valley below!
knackering, but a great weeks riding ;-)
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JustinF said:
Watchman said:
I enjoyed reading that.
Post pictures of your helpers if you decide to revisit them with wine. It'd make for a nice ending.
I've already worked out where the two nice ladies are from his Strava /stalkermodePost pictures of your helpers if you decide to revisit them with wine. It'd make for a nice ending.
As for following up, as per Watchman's suggestion? I'd like to do something nice for everyone who came to my aid, even if it's just a card through the door to say I made it back OK. I'm not sure about pictures though - I'd have to see how those nice folks felt about the idea for a start, and "here, hold these cards/flowers/wine*, while I take photos of you" might not be the most humble way of recognising their generosity.
I've been away this weekend, so nothing has been done about a 'thank-you' yet. They all seemed to share my "pay it forward" attitude too. I think they'd rather I helped someone else out of a sticky situation rather than aim some conspicuous flourish of a thank you at them.
JPJPJP said:
Gruffy said:
Nicely documented
You passed within 5 miles of my door near castle Howard... Would have been welcome to fill your bottle etc
I think the car wash you photographed is a few miles away from me.
Here's a few from yesterday's ride from sunny Lanzarote. Did about 50 miles but tbh that was enough as the winds make it bloody hard work but it's a great way to see the island. Hit my fastest top speed as well, downhill pedalling hard with the wind behind me..., 51.7 mph
Here's a link to my 'ReLive' which is a nice way to view the ride.
https://www.relive.cc/view/635293404
Here's a link to my 'ReLive' which is a nice way to view the ride.
https://www.relive.cc/view/635293404
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