Saturday
Saturday started in the approved manner, although this time hunkered down to leeward of Wow's tent because of the strong wind. Wow assured me this would be a tail wind once we got moving, but I wasn't prepared to believe this until it actually happened!
I took this photo shortly after we left the camp site:
Unfortunately we weren't to get a repeat of Friday's glorious weather and it wasn't very long before the rain set in. My camera mostly stayed under the
YELLOW shower cap for most of the rest of the ride.
It was whilst climbing this little lot that I began to hear/feel a narsty grindy noise coming from my bike. Wow started getting sympathetic noises too, but when we stopped to inspect my cycle we spotted the two broken spokes in my rear wheel.
I've not had any spoke-related adventures before, so to find my bike disintegrating beneath me as I travelled through crappy weather in what I reckoned to be the most remote and desolate part of the tour un-nerved me quite a
bit lot.
It was fairly obvious that there was zero chance of a
butcher's bike shop before Caernarfon, and after doing some rudimentary Sums based on speed and distance I was also worried that we wouldn't get there in time to find one and get things fixed before close of business. The next day being Sunday, I didn't rate my chances of finding somewhere open the next day (remembering the Post Office at Nefyn that closes at midday on week days).
We briefly speculated on the option of getting a taxi, but after riding a little longer we took the decision for me to ride on ahead and for Wow to catch me up in Caernarfon. Unfortunately, as part of this we also had to agree to both take the busy A-road as it was much more direct and so Wow would be able to find me if I came a cropper en route.
The descent to the main road was a bit hairy in the rain with what were by now quite worn brake pads, but after that and apart from a few stretches where I had to ride on the A-road itself, the route was a lot kinder than it could have been. The cycle path next to the main carriageway was an absolute godsend and for the most part in very good condition too. My main memory of it is of being up in the hills, in the rain, low clouds around me, feeling very isolated and vulnerable.
I must have zenned it out though, because apparently Wow quizzed a cyclist who had passed us both in the opposite direction and he reported me as looking 'very serene'.
On a separate note: There were a few stretches of the cycle path that were covered with herds of gastropods stampeding majestically across the tarmac. I took out a few of them, citing revenge for Kim's tent marauders a few nights earlier.
By the time I got to the A499 / A487 roundabout I'd had enough of the main road and traffic and opted to take the slightly longer but tamer railway path route into Caernarfon. That was a very welcome change in atmosphere and I had the path all to myself thanks to rubbish weather.
Emerging into Caernarfon I headed over to the signpost near the entrance to a carpark at the base of the castle hoping to find a pointer to a tourist information office (it was too rainy to want to get my phone out). There wasn't one marked on the sign, but the man in the hut for the carpark pointed me to
Beics Menai tucked in at the side of the quayside.
A woman in the doorway informed me I was just in time - the man was about to shut up shop in a minute's time! eep!
The man turned out not to be The Man, but someone who was just looking after the place in The Man's absence, so he didn't know repairs but was dealing with the cashing up. I squeezed the water out of my mits, and he lent me use of a towel and allowed me to drip in a corner whilst trying to use internet and phone to locate an alternative bike shop.
No luck there.
We chatted a bit as he finished the cashing up and waited for his wife to come and collect him. He thought we were barking for cycling in this weather. Fair enough! He took the news that we were camping too quite well...
Anyway, at some point he produced a box full of spokes!
That'll do! Wow had mentioned earlier that he'd done a spot of wheel-building, so I figured we'd probably be able to work with that.
After much rummaging and side-by-siding we found a couple of spokes of the right length and then chap said he regrettably had to kick me out so he could lock up. Before doing so though, he produced a spoke tool of some description (I was totally clueless about all of this) and a pair of tyre levers, saying he'd lend them to me if I'd give my word that I'd post them back through the letterbox once I was done. He didn't charge me for the spokes, either.
Thank you Looking After The Shop Man!
Once outside again, naturally the rain cranked itself up to 11 as I huddled into a doorway at the side of the shop and tried to contact Wow to let him know where I was.
I found a photo on the internets [
source]:
my bike, my luggage and I were squidged as close as possible to the wall just past the shop, trying to work out what to do next. No reply from Wow, so I'd left a message.
Cold, wet, bike repair to molish with limited tool kit in adverse conditions. What's a gal to do?
Phone Kim, of course.
Kim had just finished some major fettling of her own and managed to sort out the frog noises her brakes had started making after the rain at Talsarnau. She was able to talk me through general strategy and gotchas to look out for.
Thank you Kim!
Wow arrived in town whilst I was talking to Kim, so I returned his missed call and then went to stand in the car park to wave him in to where my stuff was.
He immediately declared he would not be camping tonight and I sensed this was not the time to try and persuade him otherwise. We loaded up my bike again, stashed the new spokes and set off to find accommodation as described upthread.
The sun and the camera both came out again...
Drying all of the things:
Trying to fix a somewhat broken Wow via the medium of curry:
Bucketfuls of the stuff:
Circling Nazgûl:
A stroll over the bridge, with Wow now back on form and sussing out access routes to the water for a quick skinny dip:
A warning of the dangers of too much cake, ale and curry:
Strangely concave cloud cover:
A really rather nice evening:
Once back at the B'n'B the drying endeavours continued for another hour or two and then sleeeeeep.
