Slept a bit restlessly and with anxiety for today’s bike to work adventure. I think I was paranoid that for my return journey I wasn’t going to be able to be allowed to take my bike on the S5 bus home again and I was going to be stranded in Oxford with a folding bike…
I got up, in good time and cycled off into the night, and to my bus stop and folded the bike down ready for the bus to arrive, absolutely fine. So far so good. When I got to Oxford, I went round and retrieved my bike from the store to find that the a screw that secures the metal peg in the handlebars when it’s not folded had worked itself loose and I couldn’t secure the handlebars properly. Aggghhh!!! Day one? How could this happen.
Eventually I decided it was rideable though and set off, quickly crossing the centre of Oxford and through St Clements. I had to stop at the corner opposite South Parks, and when I went to set off again, I must have raised my hands up enough that the handlebars came free in my hand and I had to hastily slot them back in the middle of the road as I pulled away into Morrell Avenue. Worse than this embarrassment as my hands had jerked back and was waving handlebars in the air I had dislodged my contact lens where it now remained lodged in the corner of my eye. I knew that I couldn’t do anything about my lens until I was indoors and so was particularly pleased when I managed to cycle halfway up Morrell Avenue (and therefore The HillTM before I was forced to retreat to the pavement and two legs.
At the end of the day I decided that it was probably not a good idea to free-wheel down a steep hill very fast with the potential of losing handlebars on a bike with very small wheels. So I cycled round the corner from my office to get my normal bus home (which was absolutely fine getting the bike on board), and got me back to Bicester in time to go back to my bike shop and get a new spring and nut put in place. And then I cycled home again.