more trivia
It’s been a month. It’s passed me by rather in a daze. I’ve travelled up to Lincoln twice, and Bristol once, and been glad of taking my bicycle everywhere. A series of errors led to me sitting in a bus stop by the M3 junction at Bagshot in the rain at 3am, with a puncture. I thought about hitching, but most of the traffic was going in the London direction - and it was all so wet, and the bus stop had a roof. So I stayed there till it got light, by which time it had stopped raining, and then repaired the puncture and went on to Woking. It’s the inner tube with the continental valve, which is neither Schrader nor Presta; fortunately my pump (which I always carry on the bike) is capable of handling it. It was a German puncture repair kit too, but fortunately I’ve fixed enough punctures not to need to be able to read the instructions. The outer tyre is also German (hey, guess where I last had bike problems!), and I don’t know what caused the puncture; couldn’t find anything in the tyre. Some thorn, I guess. Always carry your puncture kits, kids, especially if you plan to cycle around the countryside at 3am in the rain.
They closed the railway bridge on the Southampton side of the Itchen bridge for a few weeks. The route around via St Mary’s involves two mini-roundabouts which are unexpectedly scary between 3pm and 6pm. When they re-opened the bridge, it was with proper bright green cycle lanes. Hurrah! The traffic used to queue along here waiting for the roundabout onto Itchen bridge, hanging right up against the curb and making it awkward for bikes. They seem to have achieved the cycle lanes by making the middle of the road narrower.