a bit of a bike ride

up and at 'em!

You will remember that last week I had to nurse the Moggy back to Wiltshire after the clutch started misbehaving. Well, I hope you will remember. Pay attention at the back, there! ...so I needed some replacement parts, and rather than order them on the internet and hop that they'd be delivered to Jan's house in Holt before the weekend, I decided to cycle to Bristol to get the bits. Because it was An Adventure. And sometimes you've just got to do these things.

 I think it was well before 6 o'clock in the morning that I set out, and a very good time it was to be travelling; quiet and cool. I paused near Trowbridge to listen to a distant yellowhammer, the first I'd heard this year. Look, it's my bike looking noble. I'd washed it specially. very dusty, towpath life.

Here's the Avoncliff aqueduct, where I adjusted the angle on my only-just-fitted super hand grips.

...and in no time at all, here's the Dundas Aqueduct, where the early boaters were stirring (cups of tea, mostly). 

This bridge bears the mark of towlines, from the days of horse drawn boats. I wonder if they used wire cables? That's quite some grooving going on there.

You approach Bath by some very posh architecture. This building that stands over the canal tunnel was once the home of the canal company. John Nash painted a picture of it, and I should jolly well think so too

I passed by the offer of redemption, to the confluence of the canal and the river Avon, where some jolly crusts were continuing last night's drunken party. But I didn't take a picture of them.

By now it was breakfast time, and Bath Market has what I needed right then

....a bit of a fry up.

to let

a bit of a generalisation

 At Bitton, my saddle started getting very wobbly, and then the bolt that holds it in place snapped. I guess it was the rattling and bouncing along the towpath that did it.

o noes!

 ....and there were still several miles to go! Fortunately, it was mostly downhill from here, so I sat on the rear pannier rack and made slow progress, sternly ignored by the whizzened gnomes in lycra who zipped past, looking a little like pickled walnuts in Speedos would probably look if they were riding bicycles. I guess I just didn't look serious enough.

nearly there!

Very near the end of the cycle path in Bristol is a Very Useful Shop that sells nuts and bolts. So I was able to get what I needed....

...to fix the bicycle....

look, there's Darth Vader on his motorbike! Darth was from Bristol, you know

....which speeded me up no end. 

...by the time I got to  Charlie Ware's Morris Centre, the day was about as hot as it was going to get. How hot was that, you ask? Very Hot Indeed.

But John had the bits I needed!

I cycled back down to Bristol Temple Meads and hopped on a train to Bradford on Avon. Quite frankly, I had had quite enough cycling for the moment.

Look! There's  Warleigh Weir! Hello swimmers!

....but there was still a little way to go from BonA

...and I had a day off before tackling the clutch

nice new bits!

...but that is another story.