The web pages of Stephen Penney


Friday, 30th August, 2002
Failed my driving test today, which was rather irritating. Managed to stall it, and rolled back, then started and stalled it again. I also managed to clock up a load of faults for not checking my mirrors before signalling. Oh well, there's always next time - and failing that I've still got my bicycle. Not that I'm any safer on that.

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Tuesday, 6th August, 2002
Got back from the Welsh Colleges Summer tour on Sunday. Cycled probably about 200 miles in total. Last tuesday I successfully rode from St Albans to Oxford. Had a few stops for mechanical failures - the first was in Redbourn to tie my bag on more securely. Then in Jockey End my gears jammed going down the first hill of the day, and at Studham I had to adjust the height of the saddle (twice). Then I got a puncture between Chearlsey and Long Crendon which took me about an hour to fix. Arrived in Oxford about 5.30pm, rather later than expected and had a shower and a few beers.
The next day we were supposed to cycle to Pewsey, but due to the weather conditions and various other factors we decided to get the train to Swindon and cycle the rest of the way from there. Got absolutely soaked on the way out of Swindon, and managed to go over a huge pothole at speed on the A346. Buckled the front wheel (not too badly) and burst the back inner tube. Unfortunately I had a rather large lorry following me up the hill at the time, and had no way of getting out of it's way, so had to continue until it overtook me. Managed to get the back wheel fixed (in the rain) and we continued into Pewsey for a swim, and gradually others arrived for the rest of the tour.
There should be a write up of the tour on the Welsh Colleges site soon, but in the meantime here's some photos.

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