Day 36: Emsworth to Littlehampton

October 12, 2022

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We started out once again having to battle traffic. If you are getting tired of having to read this, think of us having to do it! To be sure, there was also some really nice cruising down the seafront Promenade at Bognor Regis. England is like the little girl with the curl:

There was a little girl

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW

There was a little girl,

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

We dropped into Chicester for a quick look, because we knew they had a cathedral. We're glad we did, because the cathedral was magnificent and also the town has a nice commercial centre, today with a bit of a market going on, not to mention a canal for on the way out.

The cathedral has all the attributes that made for the greatness of other cathedrals we have visited. It has the antiquity - having been built around 1100, and it has that great architecture - both Norman and Gothic style. And of course it is stuffed with great stained glass, sculptures, and relics. It also has some exposed Roman mosaic flooring from the second century, and a Chagall window that is red, not blue.

The Chicester cathedral. It also has a separate bell tower, which is a unique feature.

The cloister was a very beautiful feature. There is also a bishop's garden.

The cloister is off to the right of this hall.

Other parts of the cathedral buildings were very pleasing as well. There was a stone cottage near the cloister that one can rent. That sounded like a very peaceful option.

A Jesus lantern hanging from the wall struck me as a unique touch.

Chagall did glass in many churches, but it seems to me they are generally blue.

I am not sure which chapel this is, but it seemed lovely.

Here is the second century Roman mosaic floor, uncovered in 1968.

There are always lots of these tombs/sculptures. This one seemed colourful. It represents a bishop from the 1500's.

And here is a really old carved panel, from the twelfth century.

An old painting on wood caught my attention, because it depicts Henry VIII giving the cathedral a break of some type.

The main altar, has a zippy graphic behind it.

Chicester itself is laid out in a simple way, with North, South, East, and West streets meeting at a central cross structure. The centre is traffic free, and had a number of market stalls all around.

Food stalls were not the dominant type at this market, but there was at least this one fish vendor. The fish types are of course typical of the region.

This fruit vendor had good quality and very low prices. The only thing, he was selling in large groupings, and he would not sell anything by half or by weight. Consequently we bought, for example, a bowl of eight lafge bananas, for two pounds. Dodie did get the man to sell just one pound of the plums in the picture, but he balked at 1/2 pound. He felt we should be able to eat all this fruit quite handily, without weighing down our bikes for too long.

The canal at the south end of town afforded some welcome peaceful moments and beauty, before we returned to the traffic fray.

We of course were not the first to notice the beauty around the canal. There were several info panels about a painting of the scene done by a famous artist, with the cathedral appearing in the background. In my photo of the info panel and cathedral in the background, you can only just make out the cathedral.

Another peaceful and fun part of today's ride was the bit where we rode by the sea, with a smooth Promenade, seaside amusements and food, and seaside style buildings.

Buildings like this seem to fit the seaside.

The River Arun near where it enters the sea

We had been toying with the idea of making a fast run to Newhaven, from which the ferry to France leaves. We had a booking in Littlehampton, which is 50 km from Newhaven. We got to Littlehampton around 2:30, and were just about to abandon the booking and run for it. But fate stepped in.

For a day I had been listening to a rubbing coming from my drive train. Rubbing like that is usually easy to diagnose. A derailleur could be travelling too far or not far enough, and contacting the chain, or it could simply be that the foolish rider is running too great an angle, like biggest front ring to biggest rear ring. With click stop shifters, the adjustment can be delicate, but it's not hard to do. So how come for a day I had been fiddling the adjustments and it was still rubbing?

The answer came as I got off the bike and looked at the cranks and chain for the umpteenth time. But this one time I saw what had been in front of my eyes the whole time, Just I never expected to see that. The left side of the bottom bracket had unscrewed itself over 1/4" from the bottom bracket shell, and my cranks and sprockets there were wiggling all over the place!

I screwed the bottom bracket back in by hand, amazed that I could do this, since bottom brackets notoriously do not want to move like that. But the cranks were still wiggling, meaning that by hand I had not tightened enough. Bike shop time!

The GPS took us to a place called Dutch Bike Shop, in Littlehampton. Clearly we were not making any runs to Newhaven! At the bike shop, the mechanic conceded that he did not immediately know how to tighten the bottom bracket, and though I had "screwed" with it, neither did I.

The thing is, this is a "torque sensing" bottom bracket, that had been newly installed before we came on this trip. It could be tricky. Tonight I will watch some Youtubes about it. The mechanic asked us to come back at 8:30 tomorrow, when they open, and then he will think about it.

So our Littlehampton booking was looking good. It did have a potential problem, though, in that the guest house had no place for our bikes. After a little negotiation, it was decided the bikes could go in the "lounge". The lounge (of course) is up two flights of narrow steps. Everything in England is up narrow steps, it seems! It's no problem, though, because I have by now perfected my grip to do narrow steps carrying with the Fridays. Only curving, extra narrow could stop me.

Easy steps, if you grab those Fridays right.

Tomorrow we will complete that run to Newhaven, but we will not be in time for the ferry. That puts our assault on Dieppe to Friday. All assuming the Dutch Bikes man can fix the Bike Friday!

Today's ride: 42 km (26 miles)
Total: 1,449 km (900 miles)

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