The Bike Saga continued...

When we last saw our intrepid hero you may recall that he was very excited about his shiny new bike that went Woosh! He enjoyed it a great deal for a few days, and then on Easter Sunday, after deciding that that's quite enough talking about myself in the third person, I set off to ride from church to Brixton, where I would be celebrating the Easter Feast with the_alchemist, themidnightgirl, emperor, atreic, robert_jones, and obandsoller.

I was approaching Blackfriars bridge when something went pop and my front wheel started to feel rather peculiar - baby's first puncture. "That's rather annoying," I thought, "but I'm sure that themidnightgirl will be able to help me fix it." So I locked up the bike and took the wheel off, and now I know how to change an inner tube. The feast was splendid, although sadly missing two of our usual number, Angela and Sue, because Sue had plague. At the end of the night I said my goodbyes and went back to reclaim my bike, only to discover that some swine had stolen my brake levers and cables and my gear shifter. I'm wondering now if leaving it locked up without the front wheel made it look like a target, but in any case riding a bike with no brakes home seemed like a good way to die.

I was hoping that I'd be able to take it on a Thameslink train to somewhere within sensible walking distance, but although you're allowed to take bikes on those trains through central London, you're not allowed to actually take them on and off there. Rather anxiously I locked it up again somewhere near by and got the bus home.

Life then got extremely hectic and it wasn't until Thursday afternoon that I managed to get back into town and pick it up. I did however realise that there was an overground train which runs from Liverpool Street to Tottenham Hale, which is just round the corner from a)our new flat, and b)the Halfords where I bought the bike. So that seemed like a sensible plan. I picked up the bike and got to Liverpool Street at 16:31. Would you like to guess what time you stop being allowed to take bikes on the trains? At that point it felt like it would really be tempting fate to leave it outside overnight again, so I asked google about local bike shops, and was directed to Javi Cycle Repair who were very helpful and had all the relevant parts to get it fixed for the following day.

I was a bit busy with moving house, and they're closed over the weekend, but I managed to take a long lunch yesterday and now I have a working bike again, and she's locked up safe in the new flat's secure cycle storage and I would quite like it if I could go a little while this time with no more mishaps...