It’s been a while since my last post, the weather has been awful, nothing but rain, rain and more rain. Not that, that has taken anything away from my enjoyment of my commute, quite the reverse, I love to cycle in the rain, but drying my gear has been a problem, especially at home. It’s been a constant rush, getting in from work, stripping, loading my gear in the washing machine, having a shower, eating my evening meal, putting my gear in the tumble drier and finally having them ready for the morning again. These couple of weeks, no change, and it’s August, I thought global warming promised the same weather as Portugal for Wales!

While there has been heavy and constant rain, unusually, we have not suffered any flooding of note. Last year and the year before we had terrible flooding in some areas, so perhaps alot of the flood prevention work by government agencies has paid off, which is very encouraging. The cycnic in me just can’t believe such an organisation can get something done right, so not convinced yet.

Last night I arrived home soaked to the skin, as usual, didn’t bother with the washing machine routine etc., as no work for me today, just had a relaxing shower, ate a fantastic bangers and mash, that Elizabeth had made and watched a bit of TV. Old shows i.e., “Murder she wrote”, and “Ryan ace of spies”. Then I had to go and pick up Keiron, our eldest son from Neath train station, he’s been in Scotland for the last week, on a writer’s course. As soon as I got him home I opened a bottle of cider, and quenched my thirst, since arriving home earlier in the evening I’d had several galsses of water, but it wasn’t until I’d had the cider that my thirst was sated.

Had some disappointing news from Halfords, which remains my LBS, telling me that Continental tyres were refusing to replace my “guaranteed” tyre, stating that, as they had replaced the original tyre once because of puncture, they had fulfilled their obligation to the warranty/guarantee. Russell at Halfords, however, said that they would replace the tyre free of charge, as a measure of good customer relations, because they too, felt that Continental tyres, had let me down badly. It turns out that Continental tyres have stopped producing/manufacturing that tyre model, perhaps it was failing to live up to the expectations of both clients, like myself and themselves as manufacturers’. Russell told me that the closest spec he could get to the original was more expensive, but Halfords would stand the cost, and he believed it to be a much better tyre? Let’s hope so, anyway I’ll be writing to Continental Tyres seperately, to complain about their poor service and poor standard of customer service. If they continue to evade their responsibility on this issue, I will be writing to cycling magazines etc., to make sure as many as possible in the cycling community know about their dreadful customer service, and poor product.

I think I may have solved my lights problem for my early morning commute, when certain sections of my route are almost pitch black, particularly the hill I dread. Meirion, a colleague of mine at work, knew I was looking for something to light up the road ahead, and he has a friend in the village where he lives, Llanpumsaint, who runs a bicycle shop. Well he got his mate to let me try a double front light system which is rechargeable, Meirion helped me set it up on the bike yesterday, but it’s in the morning that I’ll be testing it, on my run to work. So fingers crossed.

By the way my mileage, as shown on my cyclecomputer, is now over 2,800 miles, I’ll have to look back through my blogs to ascertain exactly how long it has taken me to achieve that figure. Just checked back in an April post, when I’d recorded that I’d just passed 1000 miles, and had set up the cyclecomputer on the bike, back on 7th January this year, so I’ve done 2,800 miles since that date. That works out at approximately 400 miles a month.

Still small beer when compared with some of my blogging heroes, but it’s onwards and upwards.