discovery tour, day 8

[kirkcudbright]

May 8 - Oxford to Egham

We were making pretty good time, until my rear shifter fell off in my hand. The shifter is screwed into a mounting post that's brazed onto the down tube. Until it's not.

The rear shifter is the one that matters. Without it, you have a single-speed bike, locked into the highest gear, which isn't the most practical. So we took off the rear derailleur, removed a section of the chain, and settled it on an intermediate gear.

It might have been that the pin wasn't good, or that it wasn't centered properly when reinstalled, or that we should have aimed for a straighter chain path (say by using the large chain ring and a larger gear, rather than the small chain ring and a smaller gear). In any case, the chain broke about a mile later, climbing up a stiff hill. So we decided the bike was done for the day.

Fortunately, we were about half a mile out of the town of Wargrave. We called for a pick-up, then settled in a pub for lunch and a beer (we don't drink when we're biking). Eventually, Dan got fidgety, and decided to bike in on his own. Even more eventually, it turned out that Neil and Emily had gotten lost, and driven around for an hour looking for us. As a result, we missed our tour of Windsor Castle, which was the one thing Emily really wanted to see in England.

We did get to see Windsor Castle, from the outside. The Otto Bock crew took us to a pub that was practically in the wall of the castle, before a fab dinner. A nice send-off.

Stuffing my bike in a phone booth. Not sure why.	Crossing the River Thames in Oxford.
Single speed to no-speed.	Confusion. Entering the town of Wargrave.
Where we sat and waited.	The world's cutest car.

Comments

[coraline]

i assume you mean phone BOOTH not phone BOOK (unless i can't see what's going on inside the booth).
i was rather confused when i saw the caption but the picture hadnt loaded yet...

and yes, the smart cars are SO CUTE! they were all over budapest.

smart! CUTE!

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i went to their website. they make *convertibles*.

*swoon*

[kirkcudbright.livejournal.com]

Fixed. That's what happens when I let my fingers do the walking.

[kirkcudbright.livejournal.com]

Sadly, they won't be imported to the US until 2006, and even then they don't plan to import the two-door model.