yep, a proper Lucky Bag to end the week.

The weather has sort of picked up, at least, the sun has returned but some stiff winds have kept temperatures closer to 10c than 20c. After riding on Wednesday, Thursday ended up as car buying day, not for me but Aunty Bev was after some newer wheels so we went for a look and a tidy 2018 model will be replacing the abused 2014 sometime this coming week.

I was back on the bike on Friday for a solid 103km spin out to Chippenham. The sun was out but that wind kept things in the low teens and made the return hard going but lets face it, if you avoid riding in these conditions, when you need to in an event its that much harder, the weather much like hills, needs to be in the training mix. Training i hear you mutter, i know its a while away yet but i have entered the Spreewald Marathon for 2025, my favourite 'endurance' event - well its 200km long. It will be i think, my 12th participation since 2007 when young Saphira encouraged me to go ride with her.

Saturday? well i sat down to write and my head was empty, oh i knew what i wanted to put down but it just wasn't happening.

Which brings us to today. The forecast suggested a similar day to Friday so i set off towards Stroud for a spot of lunch. I was making good progress, but you'd hope that with the wind largely on your butt but then, with about 40km on the clock, disaster. I went to change gear, there was an ominous clunk but no change, another attempt had a similar result, something was broken and i was now stuck in top gear. My route was pretty flat from this point to lunch so i pressed on, going through the options in my head, Aunty Bev rescue, train or bull it out.

Over lunch i dismissed the first and after revuing my return route options, two went the same way, i'd use an adaped version of my 'planned' route back to Brizzle, instead of a succesion of rolling climbs it would essentially be one big one of a medium grade around 5km topping out at just over 7% whilst gaining @ 100m. A few spots of rain marked the start of my return but it got progressively better but windier as i headed south along the Cotswold massif. I had a two gear set up from the theoretical thirty on the bike, not easy but i got back with 109km covered, tired but happy to have made it self propelled. I've not investigated yet, at best its a replacement cable, worst a new lever which could set me back £100! I could do without the expense but OTOH the unit is best part of 20 years old and has seen action from the Baltic to the Alps, commuting to racing so i've had my moneys worth but of course until its sorted i'm sans bike again. Oh well, hopefully one of the others will be back working next weekend.

There's no riding in this weeks Gaby post but of course our heroine attracts bad luck at almost the same rate i 'break' bikes! Drop of the Hat sees the band moving on from Idstein for the next gig, what could possibly go wrong?

I'll be back midweek, maybe both Gab's and I can get a bit of better luck by then!
Tschussie,
Madeline Anafrid

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