Plan B comes up trumps

As a Committee member of an elite cycle club in South West London, I have not only to obey the letter of the law but to be seen to do so.  One of the rules set by Cycling UK is that we should not stray from home so far that in the event of a serious problem we could not get back without putting others at risk.  The temptation has been great, especially with the recent encouragement to exercise more. 

I might mend a puncture or change an inner tube but most "mechanicals" beyond the chain coming off would be beyond my ability to rectify using only an Allen Key, a tyre lever and a sachet of high energy drink.  If I were a Government Special Adviser, I might just be able to apply my own brand of common sense and hope that no-one would ever find out but no, we developed a wizard of a plan B.  Maggie and I would only cycle within a range where the other spouse would be comfortable cycling home and fetching the bike ambulance to pick up the casualty.

I have a monogamous relationship with bikes.  Unlike many club members, who rise in the morning and select from a veritable harem of machines the one they wish to ride that day, I keep one.  True, there was a divorce seven years back and I changed to a sleeker, younger model, but to this I have been faithful.  Like many a monogamous relationship, that between my bike and I is usually a happy one, despite that I occasionally fall off and damage it; but earlier this month it had a seizure.  Farthing Down ahead, change down to climb the hump on Woodcote Grove and that was that.

Somehow we did not part over the handlebars but below me my chain was tied around that rectangular metal guide that is supposed to usher it smoothly into the wheel of my derailleur, said guide was twisted into a Salvador Dali creation and rear wheel would move neither backwards nor forwards.

I took the chain off the crankshaft and could then (sort of) freewheel downhill and push it uphill, but Plan B was called into action and I had to sit forlorn on the grass verge for not very long at all before Maggie had ridden home and come to take us to Wallington Cycles, who had a new derailleur and I was only twenty four hours and a social distancing queue away from being free again to roam in a limited way.  In truth, not that limited, for if I ride out fourteen kilometres from home (a distance I know I can walk) and never go further, describing a perfectly circular route and returning the way I came, I can ride 116 kilometres without going twice up the same road.  (2 x Pi x R) + 2R.  That is enough for me.