Over the past 10 days or so, I've ridden down to Croyde Bay in North Devon for some surfing, only getting slightly soaked through on the way down when, after mostly fine weather, I ran into a thunderstorm around Tiverton.
I had been taking a fun route, but, after that, I decided to cut it short and take the A361 to Barnstaple, after which, the sun came out again!
I was planning on going out for a ride around South Devon/ Dartmoor on one day, but I got ten feet outside the campsite and felt something was very wrong and discovered that, somewhere along the road, I'd picked up a screw in my rear tyre
It was only small, but big enough to get through and create a slow leak, so I spent about 10 minutes putting in a temporary "get you home" plug and then using the mini compressor to get some air back in it. I was stopped by the side of the country lane opposite a passing place and, whilst I was there, dozens of cars and vans drove past and, unsurprisingly, not a single one of the foccers stopped!
Eventually an old guy on a bike pulled up and asked if there was anything he could do to help, but, by that point I was pretty much sorted, still, it was nice that at least someone gave a damn.
So then I had to wait several days until Irelands in Barnstaple could fit me into their workshop schedule and fix it on the day before I was due to ride 180 miles home to Portsmouth.
At least I got to ride the fun route back home via the A377, A30 and A36...