Our very own Dan Thorp surprised me recently by first saying he was taking 3 weeks holiday and secondly telling me he intended cycling to the south of France.

My first comment was ” isn’t the train quicker” followed by ” I bet you get a flat tyre as the roads in France are not maintained anything like the roads in Cambridgeshire.” 🙂

Given that Dan has had a spate of flat tyres recently, (with suspicion being cast my way), I did wonder how he would get on. We discussed briefly his plan for emergency repairs which included a spare inner tube and various chalk, patches, sticky stuff and I am assuming a couple of his parents desert spoons for getting the tyre off.

I wished him well with some admiration for his lone voyage of discovery.

My predictions we so horribly correct. Not only did he have a flat on day one this was followed closely by loose spokes and then a buckled wheel, and all before Gravesend. Dan described the event as “a shocker” on twitter.

I only hope thing pick up but of course there is always the train.