Preface - or the demise of my old bike
The summer is here, I have a new bike, and it feels like Welsh touring time again!
I haven't been touring much since my last washout in Wales. I spent the rest of last summer on holiday in the USA, but did embark on one somewhat disasterous attempt in the Peak district on an uncharacteristically sweltering weekend in October. Actually it was a beautiful ride on the first day, and apart from having to stop at every village to refill on water to avoid dehydration in the unseasonable heat I had a pretty good time. But I really should have heeded the warning signs of mechanical failure on my increasingly knackered cheapo "hawk". I'd already had several broken spokes, and the drivetrain was not in good nick.
I planned to get the train up to Banbury to cut out 30 miles or so, then ride up to the Peaks via Nuneaton and Ashbourne, wild camping somewhere near Ilam. On the second day I'd continue up through the peaks, coming down on the notorious Snake's pass into Manchester. Cheap train tickets booked, off I set. On the mile ride to the station, I tried to shift to my lowest gear behind, heard a crunch, and skid to a halt. Of course my derailer had managed to shift below its lowest limit and the chain had wedged itself firmly behind the freewheel. After much cursing and fumbling with wrenches I freed the thing and just about made the train. But the damage to the spokes was done.
After two (unrelated!) mechanical faults - poor braking meant I had to use my feet to slow down a hill, and the freewheel started to properly jam - I arrived in Ilam unscathed and had a good camp up in the hills. Given the state of my brakes, I decided to take it easy the following day - fortunate, as coming down a farm track in the middle of nowhere somewhere near Wetton I heard a snap, zipping sound, and BANG, in quick succession. Inspection revealed that a spoke had broke on the freewheel side of the rear wheel; which had gone badly out of true; rubbed against the brake; melted (?) a hole in the tyre; out of which my tube had exploded. Not good.
I had plenty of spare tubes, but didn't know what to do with the tyre. Under the watchful eye and not hugely practical advice of a very friendly farmer I fiddled with it for about an hour, and eventually managed to hold the thing together with a bit of sturdy plastic bag lining the inside. To the amazement of the farmer ("it'll be a miracle if that holds!") and frankly myself, I pumped it up to low pressure, and slooowly rode the remaining 15 miles to Buxton without further incident - where I got a train to Manchester and home. Astonishingly the plastic held for a further 5 days until I could get my hands on a good quality replacement tyre. Blackwells bookshop carrier bags are clearly the finest in the world.
Anyway, this catalogue of mechanical failure got me thinking about actually making my touring bike mechanically robust. I've described my mechanical tinkerings on the next page - to cut a long story short, I replaced a lot of stuff on the Hawk, including building new wheels, and then realised that I might as well replace the heavy, heavy frame too and bought a cheap bike with a good frame second hand - and transferred my custom stuff onto it. As a result my new bike (the "Purple Haze") is a bit of a Frankenstein's monster, but has been doing me proud so far, and it weighs about half as much as the Hawk. I can really feel the benefits of all the improvements - unladen, my average easy cruising speed on the flat with no wind has jumped from about 13mph to 15-16 mph - and climbing is much, much easier.
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