New Invention of What?

August 15, 2011

The weather forecast on the radio gave it to be a sunny morning but with rain coming in from the south west; and most of Western England seeing rain by evening. A weather description for most Summer days in fact. Sure enough, after a cloudless blue sky morning, it began to cloud over by nine o'clock, and before ten there was a shower but it didn't amount to much and the day on the road continued fair with good periods of sunshine.

A countryside of rich agricultural land, lush pasture with fat cattle, fields of wheat stubble and round bales, and rich verdant hedgerows by the roadside. A man made landscape yet nonetheless pretty. The road though followed a particular hilly coarse. Today they were continuous, often steep and always leading me to wonder, that surely there was no need for the road to cross there when it could just as well gone around.

Entering a village at the bottom of a steep descend with a certainty that what goes down most go up.

What a name for a few houses on a bend. I thought this was funny. New Invention of what? Perhaps a road which gets up the hill with reduced gradient as the incline in the photo isn't it's normal steep self. Yeah! It's a new invention. A technical breakthrough no less.

It was hard to say, on any given stretch of road, whether Is in England or Wales, the counties of Shropshire or Powys. I heard soft Welsh accents in the small villages past through no matter which country. However, the Welsh village typically had bilingual road signs, Welsh and English, I assume therefore those without Welsh language on the signs were in England.

By the time it was time to stop for lunch I had reached the small town of Kingston, which according to an information plact in the square, is a market town dating back to the twelfth century. The horse show nowadays is predated by the horse fair first held in the year 1235. The hiring fare which was in May is now "The Fun Day" and dates from the sixteenth century. Today, Monday, for some untold reason most of the shops and eating places were closed. However there was a Spar shop open and here I bough my food needs for the day including lunch of two Cornish Pasties. The young Asian woman behind the counter said when she scanned the two yogurts for one pound twenty four, "it's four for two pounds you know". I said I didn't need four yogurts and she smiled coyly. Her smile had a enchanting effect and I looked into her dark eyes smiling before reluctantly leaving. Sitting eating lunch on a bench further up the street, I really enjoyed the Cornish Pasties, so much so that I returned to the shop to buy two more. Another chance to see the pretty Asian woman.

The Cornish Pasties remind me of the Empanadas in South America, same shape, puffed pastry filled with meat, potatoes and onion, though they have a slightly different taste. A taste difference hard to describe in words suffice to say the potatoes in a Cornish Pastie are mushy, or maybe it's the cultural differences in cooking meat that make up the savoury difference on the taste buds.

With lunch eaten, I set about doing something with my rear-brake. With all the descending of late it wasn't working too well, in fact, the brake-lever when pulled in touched the handlebar grip without much happening. Not good. Not if I need to stop suddenly. With an alley key I screw in the pads and screw the adjuster barrel on the brake-lever so that they would bite on the disc when the brake is squeezed full on with space remaining between the lever and handlebar grip. Trying it, It bites weakly after my tweaking, not enough to lock the wheel. Actually it's still possible to push the bike forward under full braking load. It's useless. I screw the adjuster barrel a little hoping that will renemy the lack of braking power, then try the brake-lever again. Instantly there is a popping breaking sound. The cable snaps at the clamp. The broken end is a mass of frayed cable snapped off at the clamp on the calibre. There was the feeling of hopefulness and the end of what was a carefree day as anxiety darkens. I don't have a spare cable. I ask someone is there a bike shop in town, to an answer of No, there is in Hereford.

I rode on towards Hereford on a busy A road not needing to use the brakes much as the road followed a valley. I turned for Hay-on-Wye, a town as close as Hereford just as the cloud closed in and it began raining. A mile further though there was a campsite. Having got in quickly, finding a not too wet spot and having pitched camp the rain then stopped, so I set about doing a botch repair job with my Leatherman. It was no good, I would need cable-cutters to cut the frayed end of the broken brake-cable thinking I could then reconnect it in the calibre clamp and tighten the bolt down on it, but I'd also need to trim a bit of the outer cable and I'd definitely need the cable-cutters for that. I needed a Bike Shop.

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	0
Comment on this entry	Comment	0