Woot! I have a saddle! Wahoo! What’s that, Dear Reader? Do I hear you saying, “Of course, you have a saddle Edwina. Without a saddle you’d have no human rider and wouldn’t go very far. Not to mention, a saddleless bicycle is a pretty odd looking thing, no?” Well….
A few days ago, the cantle plate on my Brooks saddle broke (hrrmph…Susan thinks my human has lost weight, but I can attest that is not the fact and…well….the saddle did break, but I digress….). So the human swapped out the broken saddle for my backup. No problem. We were back on the road and riding fine….until today.
As we crossed a busy road, we heard something fall, but it wasn’t a familiar sound. Can’t stop in the middle of traffic, but we stopped on the far side of the road to check out obvious cuplrits….bags, lights, stuff from the bags, etc. Nothing. And then we heard the noise again as a couple of trucks passed. Oh…must have been something other than us, right?
And then we started to ride and it was clear that the first ding was part of my saddle hitting the pavement and the second ding was the truck sending the pieces to parts unknown. Expletive. We limped the remaining 4 miles into the next rest stop and hitched a ride.
So…now we have 2 broken saddles, but….one saddle has a broken cantle piece and the other has a missing nose piece. If we could move the noise piece from one onto the other we’d have a whole saddle, right? Well, theoretically. And, sometimes, with the amazingly talented PAC Tour crew, theory meets practice. Woot! They made one saddle out of the two and we’ll be back on the road tomorrow! Woot! Thank you, amazing crew! You’re awesome!
As the for ride…our short ride was cut even shorter, but we rode in the rolling hills of Ohio. “Rolling hills” is a lot like the back roads of the Driftless — steep. In the afternoon we crossed into Pennsylvania, so Ohio is now history. One rider and one crew left in Ohio due to home issues, but we picked up a rider, as well.
Tonight Edwin is back in the room with us. A low bridge clearance meant he had to come off the roof of the truck (alas, not because he and his human are getting to ride). But, to make him feel welcome, tonight he is the clothes rack while I beam here with my brand new pieced together saddle. Woot!
Details 50 miles, 2375 feet of climb
Reading List The Book of Eels Patrik Sensson. Natural history on eels. It was an Audible sale item. Interesting read with more background on why we don’t know all of the details of the lifecycle of eels.
Travels With Edwina 