A Man, a ‘Van and a Bike - Even Less to See!

The original thought was to cycle down to St Neots today but I decided to keep it free-form and just do what I felt like. The back is suffering a little from the unaccustomed exercise so walking round the town wasn’t an attractive proposition. 

After breakfasting I set out on the bike in the general direction of the main visitor centre for the reservoir, first stop on the way being Grafham Cycle Centre. They’re a hire base but also sell bikes and accessories. I’ve not been finding the padding in the cycle shorts as much of a benefit as I’d hoped, I think because they’re geared up to a head down bum in the air style of riding so I’ve been thinking of getting a wider, more padded saddle. I’m also looking to replace the suspension seat post with a rigid one as it’s not very effective with my weight on and really it’s just a tad high. 

I found a solution to the first part of the equation, a padded cover for the existing saddle, for under £15. Put it on and it’s made a huge difference! Next thing will be to try it in the exercise bike when I get home as that’s not very comfortable either. No seat posts but that’s easily solved. I also noted, but didn’t buy, a small bag that will go on the top of the crossbar to hold the small camera, etc. and keep it accessible. I’ll need to check sizes but it should work. Online shopping, which we’ve all been doing a lot of, is great but sometimes you really need to see the items in the flesh. 

It being a bit early for coffee at the visitor centre I carried on cycling round the trail and across the dam, again just taking things as they’d come. Once I saw signs for the next cafe at the fishing lodge that gave me a target. A drink and piece of flapjack there refuelled me and when I checked I figured I was about half way round so carried on. It’s an easy enough trail even on a hybrid touring bike like mine, some parts are tarmac, some are hard packed gravel and some are on roads or pavements. I developed a front brake squeal at one point but looking at the state of the wheels I think that was just some dust (downside of disk brakes). As the trail runs tight past the caravan site entrance that seemed a good place to finish! 10.43 miles recorded in 1:08 hours, a bit slower than I’d like but there are some hills and for a lot of the time I was following other people and content to relax at a steady pace. 

I’m still having some problems with the water supply on the ‘van. I think what’s happened is the flexible pipe to the tap has become kinked. I’ve restored enough flow to manage and will investigate further at home. The main problem is the locker really isn’t quite big enough for the fresh and waste carriers but I can gain some height if I replace the wooden cross member at the bottom with a metal one. It’ll only take a few minutes to do and the 10-15mm gained could be critical as getting the carriers over it is the hardest part. 

Sorry there are no pictures yet today, I may take some later if I go for a wander.