I failed to get a ride in on Monday, spent a good hour trying to get my derailleur gears working, then had to give up. I was gutted I couldn”t have a pedal. I was up at the crack of dawn on Tuesday, and working in the security light at the back door, got the gears working for the small and middle chainrings only. So off I went, it was still dark, and I had to use my lights, but at least I was pedalling.

Having only the bottom 18 gears wasn’t so bad either, I cycled my usual loop, down and back up the Neath valley, around Cwmgwrach and up to Pontneddfechan then home. The weather was glorious.

Wednesday morning, same conditions at the back door, but very cold and misty, I tried to get the gears back working for the large chainring. Somehow, I managed to take the backward step of  just the middle chainring gears functioning?

It was so miserable, with a heavy mist and spots of rain, and felt the coldest yet, but I had to have my morning pedal. Cycling down the valley, much later than my normal times, the sun soon started breaking through, parts of the valley were shrouded in heavy mist while others were in beautiful sunshine.

On my way back home I succombed to the call of McDonalds, and had a breakfast wrap and a large cappacinno, which according to the menu contained 545 calories, but I was starving. The rest of my trek home was very slow, as I tried to capture some pictures on my mobile phone of the mist, with the wind farm turbines appearing and then disappearing on the hill tops. See if you can spot them.

Cheers