I reckon to be able to replace a punctured inner and use string and wire to hold bits of bicycle together but feel a bit vulnerable when on the road in case I have a mechanical a bit more serious than a puncture, I have enrolled for bike maintenance courses only to find the company goes bust or the courses are cancelled because of lack of support, those that run have been on the wrong night or in the wrong place so it was with a feeling of achievement that I set off for the Quantocks and a Bicycle Maintenance Course. Got off the train at Taunton, saw a small piece of black plastic on the ground but decided it wasn’t mine and cycled off to the hostel where I discovered I’d lost the end off my pump. 

Saturday and Sunday we watched an expert then worked on our bikes and learnt the difference between a front and rear mech, just what a headset is comprised of and some useful tips that I hope to remember. Despite not having a fully functioning pump it seemed reasonable to have a cycle round before catching the train home as punctures don’t often happen so off I went only to get a flat 8 miles from Taunton and my train. 

I knocked on a door and borrowed a pump but the connector had the wrong fitting, the helpful lady rang the number of a taxi firm for me, I had to ask her which hamlet I was in and the name of the street, but it was only when the taxi driver asked me what I’d been doing that the irony of the situation hit me and he lost no time in calling his base to report that the cyclist with a puncture was returning home from a cycle maintenance course. He enjoyed the joke while I slunk back in my seat feeling mortified. I felt a bit better when he told me of the passenger with a broken arm and a broken leg he had picked up from hospital, the unlucky man was a Health and Safety Officer who had fallen off his granddaughter’s pogo stick!

At Taunton just as I was about to go scouring the platform for the missing part of my pump I noticed that the monitor said my train was cancelled but was told if I hurried I could catch an earlier train that was running late. Dashing along the platform I asked a Great Western employee for confirmation that the Guard’s van was at the back, he charmingly replied in the affirmative and said ‘Shall we run along together?’ I was completely bowled over by this delightful fellow.

At Reading station I decided, while waiting for my connection, to try my penny short of a shilling pump but found I could not get the tyre off! Two tyre levers went under the tyre but not three and they would not slide round as the tyre was fast on the rim so I replaced the wheel, caught the train to Didcot and took a taxi home replying to the driver through clenched teeth that yes, I did have a puncture repair kit while musing on the thought that had I not gone on the Cycle Maintenance Course I would not have gone to Taunton and lost part of my pump and would not have had to catch two taxis to get home.

Eve Thornton                      Published in Oxfordshire Cyclist No123 Summer 2002