Determined to add some excitement on Saturday evening, I went into my garage to check the tyre pressures on our bikes and was horrified to find that my rear tyre was completely flat. After levering off one side of the tyre and extracting the tube, I was mystified to find that I could not blow it up with a hand pump to find the puncture point. Putting it under water and then pumping air in revealed a large hole of about a quarter-inch diameter. Mapping back this location back to the tyre revealed that the tyre wall had blown out and well as the bead separating from the tyre wall. But this was a new Nutrak tyre bought only a week ago and used only on two 40+ rides, with a mileage of less than 60 miles! Fortunately I hadn't thrown the old tyre out so switched it back. Also fortunately the blow-out had occurred in my garage and not when I was riding the bike.
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| Tyre blow-out |
On Sunday morning it was bright but cold and we met Gary and Eamonn outside at the Waterend Barn after passing a dead rat on the paved area outside the Alban Arena.
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| Sunny start today |
A junk market had set up on St Peters Street, so we didn't cycle through the market place but instead charged down Catherine Street and along Bedmond Lane to the tin church at Bedmond . Here we paused for some wardrobe changes as the temperature was rising. We then went through Abbots Langley to Hunton Bridge to be held up at the traffic lights at the A41, where Eamonn mentioned that the car waiting behind us and revving its engine had cut him up when it passed him under the railway bridge. When the lights changed we set off to cross straight on, but the car, a red Ford Mondeo, shot past us to perform a left turn towards Watford right in front of Carol who had to brake sharply. We were all shocked by this reckless manoeuvre and stopped on the opposite side to regain our composure. Eamonn steadied his nerves by consuming a banana and Gary starting munching a seasonal hot-cross bun. Turning right from Langleybury Lane into Old House Lane we paused again because Carol's chain had jammed. Continuing, we went down the steep down and up of Bottom Lane to skirt the edge of Sarrat. This led to a discussion about the author
John Le Carré, who was associated with the village, as Eamonn had read several of his books. (the link goes to an interesting old article from 1999) After a third pause when we were approaching Chorleywood, Carol realised that we were way behind schedule and proposed that we have our coffee stop there. After getting to the centre we chose one of several cafés because it had some outside seats in the sunshine (and we had used it before many years ago.)
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| Not Maple Cross, but Chorleywood! |
It proved to be a good choice, as the coffee was strong and quickly served, despite the café not being an efficient greasy-spoon type (these are probably prohibited in Chorleywood). Anxious to keep to our schedule, we returned via Chandler's Cross, Hunton Bridge and Bedmond getting home at 1:10. Here we took a photo of my offending tyre and attached it to an email of complaint to Tredz, from which we had bought it. To our surprise, considering it was Sunday afternoon, we received a reply half an hour later from them to say that they would send a replacement tyre as soon as they got one, as they were currently out of stock.
So a shorter ride than usual, but very pleasant in what turned out to be warm spring sunshine.
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