Preparation

Not enough certainly, but then how much is enough? It is too late to do much about it now. The bad winter restricted time on the roads. An hour on the turbo is mind numbing but better than nothing though hardly what is needed for multi day touring. Sixty miles or so most Sunday morning was more the thing. But as Easter approached something closer to the real thing was obviously called for. Foolishly disregarding heavy snowfalls across Scotland and the north of England during the preceding week, I set off to ride to my daughter’s just outside Glasgow over three days. Despite a headwind it all went well for sixty miles. Then it started to sleet and hail. I sheltered in a derelict church on a moor outside Holmfirth, then in a café, then a shop doorway, a leafless tree and finally shoved into a Leylandii. Time slipped away as precipitous descents into every town and village were followed by vertiginous climbs out again. I eventually abandoned on a cold bleak moor in the pitch dark just six miles short of my destination at Howarth and had to be rescued by a patient and long suffering wife. When the following day dawned cold damp and misty I couldn’t face getting back on the bike.



Confidence slipped away. A review of the Assisi plan seemed unavoidable. But one advantage of declining mental power is that you easily forget an unhappy experience. And so it was that two weeks later I set out for London, a trip of130 miles that went more or less to plan even if there was help from a following wind. Since then there has been a successful trip to Portsmouth over a day and a half and a couple of 100 mile outings as well as the regular Sunday mornings and Thursday nights. Woefully inadequate? In two weeks time I will find out.


The bike needed some refurbishment. New tyres, gear cables and brake blocks obviously. Ten speed chains are prone to breaking and are a sod to deal with if they do, so a new chain was fitted. The Glasgow debacle established a number of unwelcome facts, one of which is that I needed the lowest possible gearing to get up steep hills with a bag on the back. A new 11-28 cassette was the best available. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a new chain and cassette are in need of new chainrings so, eventually, I end up with a whole new drive train. With road shoes you are obliged to walk around like a ruptured duck running the ever present risk of going base over apex on any sloping surface. Mtb shoes and cleats enhance both dignity and vertical stability. And whilst you're at it you may as well re-tape the handle bars especially as the old tape got ripped when I landed on my arse on a wet cattle grid last year. So unlike me the bike is in the peak of condition - I think.