Bicycles

The second dream last night was bicycle flavoured dream. While the first involved a picnic with lots of people in some kind of ten bin bowling alley gone badly wrong.

For the bicycle dream, I was somewhere in Hampshire and the back wheel of the cycle had gone badly wrong. A pain as I needed to get the train back to London, where BH was waiting for me. Something to do with the frame which held the carriers which was mounted on or near the back axle.

Triggered by there presently seeming to be something wrong with my back wheel, the sort of beating through the saddle that you get when the wheel is bent or slightly buckled, although I can see no such thing when I spin it. Don't know about Hampshire, although I used to cycle there a lot for six months or so, between Titchfield (near Fareham) and Hambledon (near Waterlooville). Don't remember ever having to make repairs on the road, although punctures were fairly common in the days before the reinforced tyres that one uses now. Without going down to check, I think from Continental of reference 1, about £20 a pop, but they seem to last a long time and don't puncture. Swine to put on though, at least they are with my amateur grade tyre levers.

As luck would have it, I had broken down in the vicinity of a young Japanese man, all lycra'd up, very keen on bicycles and very keen to help. With his expert help, I was able to discard the carrier frame and get the wheel working again, at least after a fashion. A proceeding which involved some very strange wiring up involving the brake cables. Cables which seemed to be terminated in some neat plug and socket fixtures, like a telephone cable.

His plan B had been for me to chuck the bicycle, stay in a nearby hotel overnight and buy a new bicycle in the morning. Fortunately it did not come to that, although I cannot now remember how it did end.

Maybe all down to the heat.

PS: perhaps bicycle tyres are a bit of a fashion item these days, changing all the time. Despite Bing turning up lots of Continentals, I can't find my particular ones.

Reference 1: https://www.conti-tyres.co.uk/.