Chain of events (sorry)

 

So many stories, no time to blog! Yesterday (Sat) I started off on the NCN looking forward to meeting Dave at Slaithwaite. But had to give up on the NCN after a very slow 6 miles. On all the slopes the surface had been washed away (see picture).
I took to the road guided by the GPS which took me over Holme Summit (high). I arrived late in Slaithwaite – Dave was very patient.
The next stage to Hebden Bridge was a ‘chain’ section. First of all Dave had problems with his front changer. We fiddled and got the middle and lower rings to work.
Later on my chain started to jump. And later it broke. I had a spare link so it took 10mins to fix BUT when the chain broke it got caught in the front changer and bent it down behind the chain rings. Disaster!
The changer itself seems OK but the bracket that fixes it to the bike has bent. This not fixable on the road.
Anyway, Dave and I spent an hour trying to get some gears back.
After Jane’s road-side picnic in Mytholmroyd, I left Hebden Bridge with the bottom two chain rings working-ish. Up over the A6033 and on to the A65 to Ingleton. By the end of the day only the middle one was working.
We fiddled again last night and it looks like I’ve got the bottom two working again. We’ll see how we go but this could be a show stopper.

We rode in separate groups today, to meet up with different people and it was a day of missing each other: Jane missed Ian and James in Halifax, but accidentally met Simon and Dave out of Stallybridge. Jane missed most people with the lunch stop; Ian and James were trailing on the A65 when everyone assumed they were out in front, and then pitched up at the pub five minutes after we left – another chain of events…..