7500km

7500km. Seven thousand five hundred kilometres exactly is what my odometer read when I felt the bump bump bump of the first puncture on my road bike. Today was a cold, damp day but I’d had a pleasant enough ride. I had thought to head out to Canons Ashby but time didn’t allow. I still fancied the fast descent off Burton Dassett hills into Farnborough though, so I thought I head down that way and then circumvent the bottom of Burton Dassett before heading back along the main road from Warwick to Banbury (discounting the M40!) in a quick 20km sprint. So far so good.

Climbing Burton Dassett was treacherous, slippy under wheel, with a hard frost still covering the ground at the top and a close freezing fog. However the sun trying to burn through from above and the silence that fog engenders made for actually quite pleasant riding. The descent into Farnborough took me out of the fog and I guess because it’s east facing the frost had melted too, meaning I didn’t need to back off the speed.

I hadn’t been this way before. The route requires you to circumnavigate around Farnborough Hall, which the pretty village presumably serviced at one time. I hadn’t banked on another climb though although I was rewarded with a steep descent into Molington for which my caution was rewarded by a gravel strewn hairpin half way down. Still, dreams of alpine descents filled my head. As I turned onto the main road from Warmington I headed up a lengthy but shallow climb and it was just as I got into my stride at the top that the puncture hit. It was to get worse from herein. I txted Beth to say I’d be late, whipped the wheel and tyre off, found the offending thorn and promptly snapped it off, leaving the heel of the thorn buried in the rubber, to puncture again. After struggling for 20 minutes to remove it I had the bright idea of leaving it there and sanding back the sharp edge with the sandpaper from my puncture repair kit, to at least get me home, where better repairs could take place.

By now I was starting to get cold (despite the magnificent long sleeve Rapha top Beth bought me for Christmas which is easily the best bit of bike kit I have ever owned, if not the best item of clothing full stop)
as the temperature was barely above freezing.
Anyway, this seemed to work so I slipped in a new inner tube and prepared to use my CO2 canister inflator. When I bought my fixie for commuting on, Halfords kindly gave me £90 to spend on accessories. Now, £90 is a lot of money, but of course most of the stuff Halfords sell is crap (*personal opinion) and because the voucher only had a few days t run I bought loads of stuff I didn’t need (including the worst bike computer ever, which packed up first time it rained) but I was chuffed to get the inflator. No more carrying a pump for me, just a handy little canister of compressed air and a removable valve. Easy. Except I couldn’t get it to work. So after a further 20 minutes (by now an hour had passed) I gave up and rang the emergency services (Beth) to come and get me. Only to find my phone was nearly out of battery, so I had about 30 seconds to explain my position and hope she could find me. Luckily she did, but by which time I was seriously cold, the sweat on my body haven frozen (not really). The car thermometer confirmed an outside temperature of 2 degrees centigrade (36F). Humiliated and embarrassed we trundled home. It took me a further 20 minutes to remove the remaining thorn from the tyre. I’m sure I don’t need to spell out the lessons learned.

Still, if it’s another 7500km until my next puncture I’ll be happy enough. Happy New Year.