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Wednesday 5 March 2014

Cambridge canter

I went up to near Cambridge today, to do a chunk of Poshrule's new Cambs CachAthon series, which is a couple of hundred caches in a few rings. I aimed to do about 65 of them today, and to have another bash later.

I got the bike ready with all seven batteries (in the event, I only used four). I put four of them in one saddlebag, along with my lunch and a head torch, and three of them in the other, along with my "emergency tool kit" which is pretty large, and includes a spare inner tube. I've found the perfect battery box; it's a thick plastic ex-German-army box. Thick so it should protect the batteries if I come off the bike, and plastic means it's really light.

The going was pretty good, although a bit soft in places. There were a couple of stiles, but I was able to route around them. Plenty of mud, of course.

I did 63 caches, and one DNF, but on the way home I did four more, including one that I DNFed when I tried it several months ago.

When I got home, I gave the bike a power wash, but when I pulled out a prickly twig, I heard the dreaded hiss of air escaping. So after the bike was clean, I took it into the garage for a puncture repair.

I am seriously naff at mending punctures. I always end up with a slightly leaking tube. So after I tried and failed yet again, I decided to put on a new tube - I bought a job lot of these thick-walled puncture-resistant tubes for £1.75 each, so it really isn't worth my while to spend a lot of time trying to repair one. Repair is slightly complicated by it being an electric bike; I can't take the wheel completely off, and I also have to dismantle the torque arm to get the wheel loose. But I managed to install the new inner tube, and then I noticed that I hadn't put in the usual anti-puncture tape in this wheel (because when I installed the tire, I couldn't work out how to put it in). But I've had more experience of this now, and I installed the anti-puncture tape, which should mean this is less likely to happen in future.

So, 67 finds and one DNF, and I'm resting tomorrow.

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