71 Miles. Well, it was all going so well. 60 miles down and nearing home, having cycled to visit my friend Michael in Altrincham, and then the heavens opened. My glasses rendered useless and only able to see about 10 metres in front of me I didn't really reaslise that the puddle i was going through was a cunningly disguised pothole. When you get a puncture on a road bike you know straight away. This time i had two and it felt as though my bike had exploded because i was gathering speed, going downhill at the time. Anyway a little adversity wasn't going to stop me though, i knew i had to learn to deal with this kind of thing and so set about finding some shelter and changing the innertubes. Some 45 minutes later i was ready to go again, just about to mount the bike when i heard a hissing sound coming from the front tyre and sure enough it had gone along with, as i discovered later, the shreaded tyre.
So 10 miles from home what else could i do but make a slightly humiliating call to Karen, my wife, and ask her to come and pick me up. "I can't do this when you're in the middle of Scotland" she told me. This though had occured to me and i'm putting my tribulations of this afternoon down to experience and intend to make sure i'm never in that kind of situation again. Other than this, overall it's been a positive day. I did the ride today on my own, having to navigate unknown teritory for the first time and also carried quite a bit more weight on my bike than previously. I also cycled another 11 miles on my mountain bike when i eventually got home, just to ensure i'd been further than ever before, hence the 71 miles. I've also now got my ticket to Thurso in Scotland on July 5th for the bargin price of £26.20, so it's all systems go
