metaphorically that is.

But i'll get to that in a mo, first tho, lets catch up on the rest of the week.

So Thursday a dry, bright forecast tempted me to do a longer ride, ostensibly a loop over the Severn and through the southern bit of the Forest of Dean. Of course, it was clear, well not clear actually, after just a few miles that the forecast was a bit of a joke. Okay, i'll give them dry but it was only clear above 200m and it was struggling to get over 0c all day, in fact it was quite frosty, hard enough to look like snow, on any sheltered aspect although the roads themselves remained mercifully ice free for the most part.

By my return to Bev's Gaff i had a goodly 1000+ upwards metres and 120km down, my longest and hilliest of '22 so far. The bad news was a spoke nipple failure which left me with a wobbly wheel for much of the day - more expense.

Friday was all about fixing the wheel or not rather than the writing i had been planning to do. The good news was that it turned out to be something i could fix myself, i had feared the need for specialist tools i don't own but a replacement nipple and my wheel truing jig got me back on the road although i did miss the postman. Why is that important? well (s)he had my new pedals, now i needed to collect them from the sorting office on the morrow.

I did get a head start on the next Gaby chapter with an evening writing session but my head closed down early - well it was Friday!

On to the weekend. Needing to visit the PO, i decided that it would be a shorter ride once the day had warmed up, a chance to try my new foot/bike interface. So why did i need new pedals? well, after at least 20k miles the old ones were getting very tired and in fact the bearings in one had collapsed - not great. £30 of Xmas money secured a replacement pair and new cleats which i installed as soon as i returned from collecting them, given s/h sets were that price without cleats i think i got a bargain.

The short ride took me out onto the Cotswold lump for a quick loop via Castle Combe and Corsham before returning via Bath. Short is a relative term of course, there wasn't a lot of height gain but it came to 80km pushing me above 500km for the year so far - steady but still quite reasonable. The new pedals are Boss, the lack of wobble meant my knees were much more comfortable which is quite comforting as my bad one has been giving some concern.

Today it was all about the writing, so after a bit of a lie in and a fried breakfast i set to and after several hours grind, completed the next Gaby chapter of Book 27! So if you are one of my Patreon people you can read that now.

The next Gaby here on BC will be posted on Wednesday by which time i hope to have more written too.

For now
take care
Madeline Anafrid