
I am trying to get three reports written in four days so we can head to France for a work free holiday. No guilt, no clients chasing and some nice invoices being paid into my bank while we are away. But today the sun is shining and the birds are singing and the weatherman says there is only one day left before the end of the summer (again). I decide that pounding around the lanes of Buckden and Huntingdon will not do justice to the last sunny day of summer and I will take myself off to Rutland Water for a quick 20 mile blast around the lake.
HOWEVER ……
Ten miles in to the ride when I am flying around the back of the lake (this is all relative to me being unfit and nearly fifty) and disaster strikes when my back wheel starts to make a really bad noise. Within a few scary yards I manage to pull the bike to a stop and inelegantly execute a minor falling dismount into some soft grass (and sheep poo) which cannot be really called an accident.
I look at the back wheel of the bike and find that six spokes have pulled through the rim and I have a wheel shaped like banana !
First instinct is always to throw in the towel and call for the pit crew but after twenty minutes of phoning home it was clear that I was on my own and there was a ten mile walk back to the car. This is rural Rutland and only a mile from the centre of Oakham so I am hardly stuck in the wilderness but it is still a bit embarrassing walking along the road with a bent bike and looking like a second hand Star Wars trooper in my funny helmet and sunglasses.
After about a mile of walking I noticed that the wheel seemed to be flexible and after some work with the tool kit I managed to remove another few spokes and get the wheel straight. It looked odd but when I tried it the wheel took my weight and rather slowly and with some odd grinding noises I made it back the car park and the bike repair shop.
At the Rutland Cycles shop I took the bike to see the repair guys who gave it the sucking teeth and shaking heads look. “you hit this hard man” the young cyclo-dude said “yooove bin crankin it up right?”. Slightly embarrassed by the respect from the cyclo-dude I splutter that I was just having some fun and it broke “yeah-right” they nod and look at me like I have had some major 30 foot drop into a canyon.
The news comes that the wheel is shot and the new wheel will take three weeks to order and cost half the value of a the bike to repair ! – AAArrrggghhhh.
The woolly hatted techno-dude (hatted despite it being 30 degrees in the shade) says he can repair the wheel eventually when the parts arrive but it will just happen again and again if I keep “hittin it on the trail” like this.
Apart from the obvious delight of being mistaken for someone who is capable of more than more than a two hour wobble around a reservoir (at a speed that threatens only the lamest of the fat sheep) I chat to what is now a group of three assembled Cyclo-dudes about what to do next. I get lost in the techno-chat about hoops and hubs, six bolts and eight, splines and shafts but nod approvingly when I see they are all on the same track. They pass my wheel around and inspect it like a dead fish.
The consensus is that I am “banging my bike” too hard and that the bike I have is more for recreation than for trails. My now broken bike is a good quality bike and they suggest I should complain about the broken wheel but also resist “bustin down the trails” with it again. Tree roots and stones in the track are the worst they tell me and thinking back to a few weeks ago that is just what Peter and I were doing in the Sussex countryside – OOppps !
While the Techno-dude is putting my broken bike back together I wander upstairs to the showroom and look at the rows of gleaming new bikes each claiming to be XC or Downhill or Competition and I am wondering where the section for slightly quicker than a sheep section is.
The woolly hat Techno-dude comes up to tell me my bike is ready to take away and points to a nice looking bike. “That’s a beaut for weekend ball busters, you wouldn’t compete with it, but for getting out with the guys and pegging it about the woods its a beaut” I ask him if it will break like the last one and he says he has one and one of his mates has an earlier version and they love it. – Keer-ching ! Its a sale already in my head and after swallowing hard at the price tag decide to take the big jump.
A sales-dude is found who seems a bit lost at the activity and two of the earlier cyclo-dudes come up to the sales area and debate the purchase. Much nodding and smiling and it seems that woolly-hat techo-dude has made a good choice for me. “Make sure he has the V12 pedals not the V8 and change the seat post for the FX at no cost” is shouted down to Techno-dude as the bike is wheeled away to prepare. The group finally disperse chatting about pedals and a few minutes later techno-dude presents me with my bike. He pushes his fist onto my shoulder and grins “enjoy” and heads back to his workshop. Is that a dude respect handshake or sympathy for the mug who finally bought the bike they couldn’t shift ??
For a while I was twenty years old again and “hangin” with the young dudes and debating the trail. Their view of my sheep harassing accident is obviously a far better one where I am “hittin the trail” and “bustin my balls on a tricky woodland downhill”
I will adopt their story in later life I am sure, but for now I am back to being an old bloke in a Volvo estate with a sore backside, two bikes and an empty wallet.
Funny old day and still a report to write …..