August 7, 2022
To Shrewsbury: in threes again
Some of you may remember that I broke a derailleur earlier this spring and several days were spent holed up in Uzès waiting to see if the LBS mechanic could install a suitable replacement. Looking back at that journal entry now reminds me that this was the third in a string of bad news events that came in quick succession. First, Rachael lost her Garmin and we rode without it for three days before it inexplicably resurfaced in my pannier. Then we finally heard back from UPS, confirming that they had definitely lost our two suitcases we had shipped ahead to Nice at the start of the tour. Then the broken derailleur, causing us to wonder if our normally excellent good luck had left us for good.
So, here we are again. A broken tooth. A lost wallet, now found. And now today’s events. Heck.
The plan for the day is to bike a mile and a half to the Llandudno Junction train station to catch the nonstop 11:23 departure for Shrewsbury where I have a date with a dentist on tomorrow’s calendar. Rachael is out the door early for a hike up in the hills while I have a cup of coffee, finish off yesterday’s post, and then walk down to the waterfront for a last look around. I’ll come to regret this decision when she and I meet up at the apartment later and I see the gorgeous photos from her hike she’s brought back. I should have gone with her, and we should definitely come back to Conwy some year.
Oh, and one last thing about Conwy, in case you’re planning on taking our advice and coming here yourself someday: it’s apparently pronounced Conway.
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Anyway. We pack up, clean up the joint and bike off to the station, arriving with half an hour to spare even though to Rachael’s annoyance I stop for a last look back a couple of times. I collect our small book’s worth of tickets from the kiosk and then rejoin Rachael on the departure platform where she’s chatting with another biker who’s waiting for the same train.
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He’s an interesting man. He’s just completed a three day bikepacking excursion from Cardiff along the coast of Wales, and speaks glowingly of the experience. He’s made it back in time to catch this train, which will arrive at his destination (I forget where - Chester, perhaps) in time for an appointment to visit his hospitalized mother.
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The train we arrived on five days earlier was small, only two cars; but this one, which runs to the Birmingham international airport, is maybe ten cars long. The bike car is at the far end, so the three of us and a fourth biker rush there, fighting our way through the large crowd of other passengers queuing up to board.
The bike car is packed, standing room only already. The attendant is adamant - a steely, heartless woman, there is no way she’ll allow any of the four of us with our bikes to board. She’s unswayed by the fact that we have reserved space for the bikes, and refuses to even look at our tickets. She’s also unmoved by the increasingly assertive and ultimately insulting pleas from our friend who’s desperate to get on the train so he doesn’t miss his appointment to see his mother.
An exercise in futility. The doors close in our faces and the train pulls away, leaving the four of us and our bikes on the platform. As I said, bad things often come in threes. This wasn’t it though - this is just an inconvenience for us, as there are other trains in the day’s schedule. It’s a bigger problem for our friend, who calls the hospital to reschedule his appointment and then sets off on his bicycle, lamenting that his butt was sore already without this extra forty or fifty miles to be factored in.
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I head to the ticket counter to discuss the situation with the agent and explore options. He can’t really quite comprehend that we weren’t allowed to board when we had reservations. You had reservations for the bikes and they wouldn’t let you on, he asks twice. That’s not right. He says that the woman was clearly in the wrong and that she’s a fairly new employee and maybe doesn’t know the policy yet. Nice to know, not that it does us any good today.
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The next departure to Shrewsbury leaves in an hour. It’s a two leg journey this time and requires a transfer at Chester. Also, the first leg is on Avanti, a new carrier to us and one that of course has its own bike policy different from that of Northern or TfW. They allow assembled bikes, with reservations; and allegedly allow folders without reservation. He phones an operator on Avanti and they agree to let us board, so it sounds like we’re set.
As I’m leaving the counter I turn back with a last question: how long is the layover in Chester, so we can be prepared? He checks the schedule. Eleven minutes - not much time, assuming everyone is on schedule. The Chester station is larger than this, with four tracks. He helpfully calls ahead to see which track our second leg will depart from, but that’s not known yet.
Finally, I ask him how long after that it would be until the next train after this one departs in case we miss our connection. He consults the schedule, then looks up at me and and wryly advises that we should try to make our connection.
The train arrives. Once again there are four bikes waiting to board - the fourth man rejected at the previous boarding and a new guy that’s shown up in the meantime. Once again there’s a problem - there’s only space for four bikes, and there are already four on board. We tell her the agent had called ahead to verify that we could board, but no one has told this woman. Then a station agent points out that we have folders and those are in theory always allowed - so the other two rush off to the bike compartment to grab the last two slots and we quickly step on board with our bikes before anyone changes their mind.
The situation on board is pretty chaotic because the car’s nearly full and it’s not apparent where the bikes should go once we collapse them. There’s a bay full of luggage they might fit in, and passengers offer to move theirs into overhead storage to free up the space for us - and then the bikes just fit, even without folding. Great, since we want to be ready for a quick departure at the other end to improve our odds of making our connection.
Five minutes later the agent comes through, checks our tickets, and then frowns and says the bikes have to move. The bay is a wheelchair space, and it needs to be made available in case someone in a wheelchair boards in an upcoming stop. So we wheel them down the narrow aisle to the opposite end of the car where the bike storage is, and see that there’s just enough space to squeeze them behind two suspended bikes if they’re folded. It’s a tight fit, but I get it done.
A half hour later and Chester’s the next stop. In the meantime no one in a wheelchair has boarded and the agent hasn’t even come through again, so we’d probably have been fine if we just left them where they were earlier. Now though, we have a problem: we have to to get them quickly reassembled in this tight space so we’re ready to disembark and rush to our connecting train.
I start with Rachael’s but immediately encounter a problem. In our rush to board her rack strap became dislodged and coiled tightly in between the gears of her rear cluster. Really tight, and I can’t unwrap it so I get out the knife and start cutting away pieces hoping to free things up enough that I can reassemble the bike. Unexpectedly, a woman Rachael’s been chatting with stoops down to help. She says she’s just part of the cleaning crew but knows her bikes; and between the two of us we get it done with a few minutes to spare before we pull in to Chester, leaving me enough time to reassemble mine too.
We quickly disembark, helped by a long distance walker that Rachael has also been chatting up while I’m at work, and ask the first agent we see which platform our train departs from. 3A, across the tracks. Is there an elevator for the overpass? Yes! A few minutes later we’re on 3A, our train is at the far end of the platform, and we rush down it to board before it departs.
We make the train. The train’s not crowded, the bike racks are free. So all of this up until now is just inconvenience, grist for the memory mill. This isn’t the third bad thing I alluded to a thousand or so words ago.
The third bad thing? When we get off the train I tell Rachael to check out her bike since it’s had the strap wrapped in the cluster and might have a problem. But nope, hers is fine. It’s with mine. My derailleur’s broken. In maybe the only real good news of the day, the Premier Inn we’re booked into for the next five nights is only a few hundred yards from the station, so it’s a short but glum walk.
Today's ride: 2 miles (3 km)
Total: 1,665 miles (2,680 km)
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2 years ago
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2 years ago
Which platform? Hopefully, there's a good LBS with a derailleur in stock!
2 years ago
And the derailleur on top of it all. Germans say Alle guten Sachen sind drei, so maybe you're in for some luck?!
2 years ago
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2 years ago