We just do not get decent weather on Bank Holiday weekends!

There was a catch but we'll get there in a minute.

First lets properly catch up, back to Thursday, after my late midweek post i eventually knuckled down for some writing and after a mammoth session, another Gaby chapter was completed.

By Friday the weather was quite nice so i set out on a nice ride out into Wiltshire, a bit over 100km and despite being quite warm and a bit offroady, not a bad average speed either.

I had toyed with a longer walk for Saturday but instead, after a trip to the supermarkets, i got on with more writing, is that three chapters this week? Anyhow, they are all up on my Patreon page.

Which brings us to today, a forecast in the high 20's c tempted me to plan another bridleway heavy ride into the south Cotswolds. Route designed, bottles chilled, sunnies on, i set off before nine to avoid some of the expected heat. even so, by the time i turned onto my first bit of offroad, 30 odd km in to the 100km route, it was starting to warm up. This was clearly a less used route, not helped by the farmer ploughing the path out leaving users in the last furrows of the crop and then literally, the path went across the middle of a field of Rye.

Well whilst its entirely legal to follow the path, i decided to detour around the field edge which was actually surprisingly rideable - that is until it wasn't, or rather my bike decided enough was enough! There had been no warning, one minute i was happily riding, the next half the drivetrain was wrapped around the bike. On investigation, my rear gear mechanism had let go, simply exploded, i didn't even have all the bits. And so my lovely sunny ride in the country was effectively over.

I walked out to the nearest road to assess what i could salvage of the day, setting off after a bit of surgery to try and limp back to Brizz. Which was kind of working until it wasn't, i walked and scooted another few miles before giving up in favour of getting rescued. Breaking bikes gets old very quickly and whilst the failures are generally spaced fairly well apart, anything unexpected becomes a burden on down time and replacement parts, in this case @ £80! Oh well, shit happens.

Back at the ranch i set about removing the remaining damaged bits and looked for bits to 'borrow' to get the bike running again. It was a couple of hours work but she's fixed having 'borrowed' a derrailleur from Foxy and using my spare gear and brake cables - todays jaunt has cost @ £90! It's a good job i sort of know what i'm doing, apart from the gears themselves, i had to strip a control lever down to get the new cables in place and re-true the rear wheel which took damage during the fiasco.

I have posted more May Queen this afternoon, part 6 takes the whole thing up a level!

The coming week looks interesting, tomorrow is the actual Bank Holiday with temps locally expected to top 30c before things start cooling off towards 20c by next weekend. It's also half term here, traditionally known as Whitsuntide or Spring Bank Holiday, the current refusenics want to call it Late May Bank Holiday for some reason. That does mean that a lot of stuff i might've done in the good weather are off limits, if i go to a cafe, historic building or archaeological site, i'd rather not have to contend with grockles and out of control kids. That means i will be avoiding said places on my rides and i'll be cracking on with the writing, with luck the next Gaby part work will be out by the weekend!

So that's it for today, back midweek,
Tschussie,
Madeline Anafrid