Saturday Ride: 21st April 2018

Pete encounters a puncture fairy on steroids.

Five of us met at Shurguard, Cam, Graham, Roger, Tommy and Pete. Just three weeks earlier our planned trip to Tanhouse farm was cut short by freezing cold weather and rain. This time we were all in shorts and T shirts enjoying the glorious sunshine and confidence in reaching our destination was high. That was until the first ascent on Chipstead Valley when the beading on Pete’s rear tyre blew with a loud bang and shredded the inner tube.

The tyre was a write-off but fortunately there was a bike shop a couple of miles back down the road and a temporary fix using plastic packaging around the broken beading held sufficiently to get there.

The mechanic describe the new tyre, a Schwalbe Durano Plus, as “Off the scale puncture proof”. We got about four miles further on to Walton Golf course when Pete’s rear tyre was flat again. To cut a long story short, various issues such as a faulty valve and different size inner tubes it took a further four changes of inner tube to get it sorted.

By this time we were so behind schedule that we decided to re-route via Mickelham to Rykers cafe at the bottom of Boxhill. Karen who had been patiently waiting to meet us at Tanhouse headed over and met up with us too.

Return was uneventful and at a good pace via Boxhill, Walton, Kingswood and Chipstead Valley.

36 miles at an average of 13.5mph