A bike ride to Frome, where I get hot and lost. Episode One of Two.

[Apologies that one bit is in red text and one bit is in smaller text than the rest. I have corrected both bits but Blogger isn't taking any notice!]

Why Frome, you may say? Well, interestingly, this town in Somerset - population about 26,000 - was reported recently to be the least lonely town in Britain, but I didn't go in order to find out exactly what it offered in the way of non-loneliness. Neither was it for its quaint and steep streets full of independent shops. I simply went because last year I had been given a Sustrans leaflet about The Collier's Way, NCN route 24, which runs from the Dundas Aquaduct just outside Bath down through Radstock to Frome, and I thought it sounded like a jolly jaunt.

Sustrans says it's "perfect for novice cyclists". Hmmmmm, well........maybe not some bits!! More of that in the next episode.

Is it just me, or do all cycle tourers spend ages planning their trips?  For me the route planning and the booking of accommodation (some B and B and some Airbnb) took several days. By the time it was all done I couldn't wait to get away from a screen and onto the bike. I booked my first two nights and decided to leave a third (or even fourth) night until later.

Once all that was done, the actual packing was fairly straightforward as I've got a spreadsheet of the basics I need to take on bike trips, and where it all goes, whether in pannier main pockets, pannier zip pockets, pannier net pockets, bar bag, or rucksack, and even what goes in my trouser pockets! I like to know exactly where everything is and be able to get to it easily. I don't want to be ferreting around  looking for loo paper when I've just found a nice private bit of woodland in which to obey the call of nature (I don't leave a trace by the way, in case you were wondering).

I set off on Sunday (June 24th)  at about 8.30, using a pre-recorded course on my Garmin for navigation, which does, I have to admit, make things easier - no need to keep looking at the map, and as long as I remember to actually look down at it, I don't go wrong. But I wasn't particularly looking forward to the first 12 miles or so, which in my head I never particularly like, being very windy (that's windy as in bendy, and not windy as in blowy) and full of little hills, and cars that overtake in stupid places, but this time it was fine - as it was Sunday and still reasonably early the roads were quiet. No mummies in 4 x 4s rushing to get the kiddywinks to school......or others who haven't got up early enough and when they see me think -

"Oh drat, a cyclist, and a middle aged one at that. Move over into the potholes woman, I'm coming past!"

No. It was all fine and dandy and I reached my coffee stop, Three Trees Farm Shop and Cafe at Chiseldon, not far from Marlborough, quite relaxed. I couldn't believe how busy it was even though I got there at opening time. It used to be a quite basic farm shop with small cafe attached - now the shop is much bigger with more variety of foodstuffs, and the cafe is large and airy, with outside seating too - perfect for cyclists! It's one of those farm shops that has obviously become quite a destination. After using the nice clean facilities, I joined the queue of about 10 people. Others were already sitting down tucking into a cooked breakfast (which they had probably driven there for) and I was sorely tempted to order one for myself. I never eat a huge amount before leaving home, as I'm always feeling a bit nervous and just want to get going, but always find that about this distance into a bike ride I could happily wolf down a full English breakfast. However, I resisted temptation, not wanting to start spending much money so early in the trip, and just had coffee, orange juice and a snack I'd brought with me.

I sat outside at a table with another couple, and we got chatting. I asked where they lived, and they said -

"Swindon, for now......"

I sensed a slight dislike of Swindon in their tone......which I could understand. As a child in Winchester I grew up with an image of Swindon being literally grey, because a friend of mine moved there with her family and my mum made some negative comment about it which included the word grey, and ever since then that is the way I have thought of it. It's our nearest big town, where we've often gone shopping for clothes or shoes in the past; it's not actually THAT bad but I have always been glad to get away from it, just as I would any big town. In its favour, it has a row of rather nice old railway cottages, plus my excellent sewing machine man lives there.

It  turned out that this couple had previously lived in a village in the middle of nowhere and found it hard to adjust to townlife. They had my sympathies..........

Last year I cycled down the 7 miles of NCN Route 482 from this cafe, and found it rather boring. It's an old railway line and while this means it's lovely and quiet, there's not much to look at, so this year, needing to travel much the same way, I cycled down the minor roads to the west of Marlborough instead, which was much more interesting, going through three lovely villages all by the name of Ogbourne something.

I later stopped for lunch outside these grand gates, sitting on the wall to eat -

Not long after I'd finished, a couple, presumably the owners, drove through the automatically opening gates, in a 4 x 4 of course, and did not return my friendly smile. They probably would have gone ballistic if they knew I'd not only sat on their wall but also squatted in their woods.....


The advantage of walking and cycling is that you can easily stop at a place that looks interesting. I wasn't in a hurry and so I was able to do just that here, at this fascinating little museum of photographs at Alton Barnes -

It was indeed a quirky place!

An article about the family of the couple who own the place

To quote the local paper -

"Ray is well known in Alton Barnes and nearby Honeystreet as he keeps a village and family photographic archive in the outbuildings of his home which is literally overlooked by the White Horse.

The small museum is open every day to anybody who is interested.
Ray said: “My family has been part of this village for hundreds of years and I’m very proud of our heritage and that of the villagers."

Round the back there was another room, with more photos and memorabilia, on the floor, on a snooker table and on the walls. I loved the hand written signs all over the place, full of spelling mistakes, and missing apostrophes. Normally I would be wanting to insert them where they have been missed out, being a bit of a punctuation freak (spot the two errors in the sign by the visitors' book - there, I've just given one away) but here I found it added to the quirkiness, and I forgave the writer. I think it's lovely that someone has created this little museum just for the love of it and to share it with others, and not for any financial reward. As others had written in the visitors' book, I had passed this place before, with Husband, but had not had time to call in. Or maybe it was more of a case of me liking this sort of quirky place but Husband isn't quite so keen...........

Further on, this is how to take a selfie if you haven't got a smartphone (actually I have got Husband's old one, but I usually only use it for the OS maps on it)  -

At Urchfont, a very picturesque village not far from Devizes, I stopped in the churchyard in a lovely shady spot, for rest and recuperation. As anyone reading this will know, we have had rocketing temperatures recently, often 30 degrees centigrade or more, and my ride so far had been very hot, although not horribly so. Husband had suggested I wear my Tilley hat when I set off; I had been a bit reluctant to simply because I wasn't used to wearing it for cycling. I also wore sunglasses (£1.99 from Aldi and they are excellent!) for the first time, more to keep the insects and dust out of my eyes than anything else. I got used to the hat, and wore it most of the time once I realized it wouldn't blow off.

Today's ride was 43.66 miles. That's another obsession of mine - adding up all the fractions of a mile! For a while I stopped doing it , and merely rounded them up or down, but then I thought - nope, if I want to count all those bits of miles then I jolly well will!  It was an easy ride - in fact the easiest of what turned out to be four days of cycling. 

I arrived at my B and B, a farmhouse in Potterne, south of Devizes, on the dot of 6 pm, as planned. Spotless,very quiet, lovely walk in shower, and yet, it was missing something. I would say it was missing a certain je ne sais quoi, but actually je sais perfectly well what it was missing - homeliness. Unfortunately I'd left my camera with my bike, which was now locked up in a tack room, so I couldn't take a photo of the rather odd mix of a black blanket on the end of the otherwise mainly white bed, and a black wall-hanging behind the bed (I loathe black furnishings), a large Roman head on the windowsill, and French shabby chic furniture. None of this made for farmhouse style in my opinion. More sort of, er, "boutique"........I don't know whether that word was used in the online description but if it had been and I had seen it I would have been immediately put off. And as for the very large open urn used as a bin in the shower room, well, give me a nice sensible little pedal bin with a lid any day, so that whatever I have chucked in it is then hidden.

I hadn't eaten much on arrival at the B and B, not fancying either of the two packet meals I had brought with me. My home made muesli went down well, but I hadn't got enough milk to eat much of it, so I woke in the night rather peckish, and had to get up to snack on bits and pieces. Maybe I should have had that breakfast..........but at least there would be one in the morning.

Tomorrow - getting lost and exhausted in the heat in Frome (but not lonely).

Singer 3105, and the Apollo bobbin case

In my post about the Singer 413 a while ago, I mentioned that I had this machine to work on next. A lady had bought another machine from me and said "Would you like an old one I've got in the attic?" Yes please!

This is it on the kitchen table, preventing us from eating like civilised people should, i.e. at the table.....

There was a slight crack in the clutch wheel but it didn't affect anything.

And afterwards, ready for sale.

This one is made in Brazil, and is the first one I have had that was made there. Getting it going was fairly straightforward, being mostly just cleaning and oiling. However, I did have a bit of a problem with the tension, as I had had with the 413, which I had not managed to get quite perfect, so I wanted to take the upper tension unit off and check that it was clean and working properly. I couldn't at first work out how to get it off, but with some advice from the Vintage Singers group (now on www.groups.io) I worked it out - a little bit of levering with a screwdriver and the front of the unit came off. I cleaned it and put it back on.

I then investigated the bobbin tension. Both this machine and the 413 have the Apollo bobbin case. I realized that the two metal parts that create the tension weren't doing their job, and that that was why I couldn't get the tension right, so I ordered a new bobbin case, which cost about £4.95 plus postage. The price of these bobbin cases varies a lot, from even less than what I paid to about £13 if my memory serves me correctly, which made me a bit suspicious. I decided to order mine from what I thought was probably a reputable sewing shop, BSK, rather than some random place on Amazon,

In this picture, the new one is on the left, and the one from the 3105 on the right. The photo isn't that brilliant so I hope you can make out what my arrows are indicating, which is that the outer tension spring is not tight to the other metal piece (sorry, don't know the name of it...) as it is on the new one. I had not been able to get it tight however much I had tightened the screw, so the thread wasn't held in tension.

When the bobbin case arrived, I put it in the machine. At first it appeared to fit but then I realized that it didn't. It did not sit absolutely level in the machine. When I looked at the two bobbin cases, the original one and the new one, I couldn't see any difference at all, even with a magnifying glass, but knew there must be, so I emailed the company, who said I could return it for a refund, though I don't think they understood what I was saying, and thought I'd ordered the wrong bobbin case.

Then along comes Husband, takes a look, and finds a difference. Typical...... I didn't manage to take photos of the difference, but basically there was just a slight difference in the shape of the case underneath, preventing it from sitting in the machine properly. He tried to modify it, with the aid of a file, but without success. So I remained at the kitchen table and fiddled about.........

I removed the two metal pieces from both cases. At this point I did find a tiny piece of fluff between them on the old one - that alone could have messed up the tension. I knew it hadn't been just that, but even so it just goes to show how despite thinking I had got the bobbin case clean I hadn't, and it was only by taking it completely apart that I was able to. I could not get both new pieces to fit into the old case, but I managed to get just the new outer tension spring into the old bobbin case, and hey presto! Problem solved! I got good tension.

I should add here that I thought that the two screws in the bobbin case - one for adjusting the tension and one further along, were the same, but they are not! One is very slightly longer, and one hole is very slightly bigger. I have to confess here that I am writing this up several weeks later and I can't remember which screw went in which hole (should have written better notes...) but just be aware if you ever take one of these bobbin cases apart that the screws ARE different, and take note of which one goes in which hole.

Another note on these Apollo cases - when I was researching how to get the top tension unit off, I came across this video on Youtube. It's quite a useful video. At about 8 minutes in the man talks of there being three different types of these Apollo bobbin cases - made in either Brazil, Taiwan or Poland. He says to try and get the right one for where your machine was made. I don't know if this is correct, but if it is it might explain why a generic Apollo case won't necessarily fit all Singers. I did see comments on Amazon from someone who had bought one and it hadn't fitted.

So, another machine was on the road, and I sold it pretty quickly.

And another one has come along.......... I have just bought a Singer 411g from a Facebook selling group. 

Now, shall I go and sew, or try to change my bike pedals all by myself?

Lizzie

[Note re Bloglovin - I recently deleted my account with them, as I was getting some rather dodgy people following me via there. I am now wondering if this has stopped some readers from seeing that I have written a new post. If you think this might be the case for you, then please let me know. I am not the best at managing this sort of thing.]

Breaking in a Brooks B67 saddle

 Nearly two years ago, I ordered a bike from Oxford Bike Works (which you can read about here) and thought that I would order a Brooks saddle with it. I requested a B17, but only because it seemed that this was the Brooks saddle of choice for most tourers.  

My current bike at the time, a Trek, had a Bontrager saddle on it (see the pic below) which I was very happy with (I'd been fitted for it in my local bike shop) but the idea of having a leather one appealed to me - in particular less sweaty, but also it apparently moulds to the rider's shape - so, as I was getting a new bike I thought that this was the ideal time to try a Brooks saddle.

However, that saddle was so uncomfortable, that after collecting the new bike, I barely made it the 12 or so miles home, even with padded underwear on, so back it went to OBW. I did ask about changing it for another Brooks, as by then I had done my research on them and realized that the  B17 was so uncomfortable for me primarily because it was just too narrow, but the comment was -

 "If you don't like this Brooks saddle then you probably won't like any of them".

I knew this to be nonsense, having discovered that there were many different styles and sizes. I was given instead a fairly decent Velo saddle which enabled me to ride the bike back home again. In fact, the whole OBW bike later went back, which you'll discover if you read that post. 

The next year, to replace the OBW bike, I bought a Koga trekking bike, put the Bontrager saddle on it, and bought another one (almost the same but not quite - as usual the manufacturer had done that thing that manufacturers often do and "fixed what ain't broke"....) for the Trek. Recently both of these saddles began for some reason to feel uncomfortable on quite short journeys. I had previously been able to do 40 miles, at a push, without using the padded underwear but now I could only do about 20, so I looked up the notes I'd made ages ago on the different Brooks saddles, and read again blog posts such as this one by Lovely Bicycle, as well as lots of comments about them on cycling forums, and began to seriously think about buying one. I should add that I later remembered that I had altered the position of the handlebars on the Koga and thought that this might well have affected the comfort of the saddle. When I altered the bars back again (I wasn't that keen on the new position) the saddle seemed to return to normal! The slight discomfort on the Trek's saddle remains inexplicable. [Note on 5.2.19: Discomfort seems to have disappeared on this saddle!] I decided to try a Brooks anyway......

As I said, I had done my research on the different models, which included looking carefully at the measurements of each of them, and then finding out what I could about the rail length as Brooks saddles have short rails. As I have my saddles quite far back I knew this was important and could be a reason for me not to have a Brooks! I emailed Brooks and asked them for the usable length of the rails on the B67 and B67S, which was the model I had decided on. They replied saying - 

B67    7cm

B67S   8cm

The rails on my Bontrager saddles were about 8cm, so logically you might think that I'd have gone for the S model, but to compare lengths -

B67 260mm

B67S 240mm

My Bontrager 262mm

(I'm still trying to fathom out why the S model, i.e. the women's, has got longer rails, when it is shorter!)

I didn't like the idea of having a saddle that was 22mm shorter than my present one, and so I decided on the so-called "male" version, the B67, despite the shorter rails. Incidentally, amongst all the discussion on the subject of Brooks rail length, very little had come up (in my searches anyway) on  the subject of the position of the rails on the saddle, which even I, with a mere one A-level (I took two, but failed one....)  had worked out was as relevant as the length.  

Sit bones 

As I said earlier, I was measured up for the Bontrager saddle, on one of those clever sit on squidgy things they have in bike shops. Although I never knew what measurement it came up with, I was told I needed the largest size of the model, which was 180mm. I didn't give it any thought at the time, but I have since wondered about why my sit bones are quite wide apart, given that I am a slim person. I have since read that your general overall size doesn't indicate your sit bones size, so you can be "small" and have wide apart sit bones, or "big" and have sit bones closer together. I find this all quite fascinating stuff. It reminds me of when I was expecting my first baby, and the doctor asked me the size of my feet -

"What on earth has that got to do with having a baby?!" I thought. 

But he told me that the size of your feet is an indicator of the size of your pelvis and thus would have some bearing (pardon the birth related pun....) on your ability to get the baby out! I have size 7 feet, (which is quite large for someone of my age, though not large for the younger generation) and all four emerged without any major difficulties, so presumably the big feet helped. Thanks Dad! (who had big feet. Is that correct - does foot size come from the father?). 

Anyway, aside from the size 7 feet, I later measured my sit bones using the corrugated cardboard on a stool method - you sit on it and make depressions and then measure from centre to centre. Mine came out at just under 140mm. You need to add on a certain amount to that to get your saddle size - how much depends on your riding position. That gives me an extra 40mm on the Bontrager saddle, which should be plenty, but I must admit I still always feel as if my sit bones are right on the outside edge, but this could be just my impression, and not fact. There is also the fact that some saddles are fairly flat and others are domed, so the measurement of the saddle width alone is not really enough to go by when choosing one that's right for you. Add to this lots of other factors as well, and it all gets very complicated........

However, I decided that the width of the B67, 205mm, should be plenty for me. After all this research, which was thoroughly doing my one A-level head in, I realized that the only way to really find out if this saddle would fit my bike and my derriere, was to buy one. If necessary I could put it up against the current saddle and if I didn't think it would go far enough back, I could send it back.

Bontrager saddle

I bought it from Tredz, who were selling it for £76.99, which was the best price at the time, plus I got £5 off with the discount voucher they sent. Just a few days later they had put the price up to £91.99! (it still is). It took about 10 days to come as they didn't have it in stock, so I had to be patient. When it arrived I looked at the position of the rails on it and in particular at the position of the usable part. I had tried to work this out from photos, but when I actually came to look at the real thing I realized that they did not extend as far forward as they appear to in photos, as the rail begins to curve inwards sooner than is apparent when looking from the side. I meant to take a photo of it underneath before I put it on the bike but forgot, but see the link at the end to a website with a photo of the underneath. Anyway, holding it up to the other saddle, I reckoned that I could probably get it in about the same position, so I went ahead and put it on the bike. If it proved unsatisfactory I wouldn't now be able to send it back, but could always try and sell it on Ebay.

This is where I had the saddle positioned first - as far back as it will go, and more or less level from front to back -

Brooks B67 as first put on the bike

I tried it out on very short rides (longest about 6 miles) and have to say it felt hard and slippery, and particularly because of the slipperiness I felt less in control of the bike than on my other saddle. However, it was nothing like the discomfort of the B17, so I thought that maybe it was just a question of getting it in the right position, and that I would be able to break this one in. I had read other people's accounts of having to get the tilt of the saddle right, and in particular about having it slightly nose up, so that the back of the saddle is level, meaning that your weight is transferred more onto your sit bones.

Here it is after I had altered it to this position, the back of it now level (with the coal bunker - how handy was that!) -

As I later put it on, more nose up

From the rear - just in case that's of any use to anyone

To begin with I didn't even feel able to ride further than up and down the quiet flat road in our village, but then I went out on a ride of about 6 miles, most of it on a road which had been resurfaced last year so I knew wouldn't be too bumpy!

I have since done a lot of pfaffing around with it. I have read that other people have had to do this to get the position just right, in particular regarding tilt, and fore and aft position, though for me regarding the latter it was just a case of having it as far back as it would go. I had been reading so much stuff about saddle position that something made me think that perhaps I had the saddle too high, so I put it down a bit, but then I put it up again, and then again a bit more! I was hoping that this would work for me as I knew that this would also put it slightly further back. Another thing I did was to decide on which of three pairs of shoes I was going to fix the saddle height to, which might sound a bit over the top, but I knew there was quite a difference in the thicknesses of the soles of the three pairs of "flat" shoes that I normally wear for cycling, and that this could then affect the ideal saddle height. Of course, length of foot will make a difference too, which few people mention.

I also tilted the nose just slightly down a bit. After these two adjustments, tilt and height, it is indeed much better and I think I have just about got it dialled in (as they say...) now. Possibly it could even go a bit higher. All this reading, and watching of You Tube videos, makes me realize that you need to take in all the advice but in the end you just have to have the confidence to set the saddle as it feels right for you, and not as someone else says it should be.

This is the position it is in now -

Apologies for this photo not showing the bike in exactly the same position as the one above - I know that would have been more useful for comparison. The piece of white tape witha line on it on the rack was my method of seeing how much the saddle went back when I raised it. I put a tiny mark on the edge of the saddle to line it up with.

Today I managed a ride of about 15 miles (without padding) which is progress! Admittedly it was in three sections, with breaks in between, but the saddle is most definitely improving. I no longer feel like I am going to slide off it. I keep trying to put my fingers under my sit bones when I am riding to try to feel whether they are inside the area of the metal frame, but it's very hard to tell - I'm just hoping that they are, as if they are not and I am riding on the part which is over that metal frame then I will never break it in.

I have now done just over 50 miles on it, and every time I return from a ride I look at the saddle to see if I can see any impressions of my sit bones. Not yet......

The past.....

As an aside, and as someone who often thinks back to the past and the way things were done then, and about how "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!", I have thought a lot about how ALL bikes would once have come with a leather saddle, and probably, in this country anyway, more than likely a Brooks. My first little Raleigh bike that I was given to me for my sixth birthday in the 1960s, probably had a plastic saddle on it, as by then leather saddles were going out of fashion, but my mum's old black bike that I sometimes rode as a teenager, not having a bike of my own at that point, undoubtedly had a leather sprung saddle on it. Every bike I have ridden since then has had a synthetic saddle on it.

Recently the BBC showed a wonderful programme on the Raleigh bike company, and it included this lovely clip of a 10 year old who cycled 100 miles on her bike with her father and cycled home the next day! Wow!!!

Raleigh clip

I'm sure she's got a Brooks saddle on her bike!

I would have loved to ask this lady if she got saddle sore.

And did Billie Fleming when she rode nearly 30,000 miles in 1938? She also must have ridden a leather saddle.Watch this interview with Billie Fleming.

I have read that a lot of cyclists, particularly tourers, using leather saddles do not wear padded shorts, or padded underwear. Padded shorts were only introduced (correct me if I'm wrong) when mountain bikes became popular in the 1980s, and even then it was at first only a chamois lining without padding. Did anyone ever use any kind of padding before this?

Torque wrench

Just to add a little about the tool I have been using to aid me with all this pfaffing. At Christmas I thought -

"Husband would love a torque wrench"

Actually it was more a case of -

"I would love a torque wrench so why don't I buy one for Husband and then I can borrow it!"

After researching them (that's the trouble with the internet - you feel obliged to do a load of research before you buy something!!) I decided on this X-Tools Essential Torque Wrench kit from Wiggle, which I see has now gone up by £5 since I bought it. Previously I had just used Allen keys but had always been a bit unsure about whether I was tightening things up enough, or maybe too much, so felt that a torque wrench would give me the certainty that I was tightening bolts etc the correct amount. I find it easy to use, and despite some reviewers saying that they didn't always hear the vital click that shows you when you have reached the correct torque, I always do.

Torque wrench kit

Some useful links -

Bocage Biking
www.falconpev.com (useful photo of underneath a Brooks B67)
Lovely Bicycle! (who is not writing about bikes any more but search her site for articles on saddles)
www.cyclinguk.org/saddlepain (Very informative article!)

There was another very good article on Brooks saddles that I came across, but unfortunately in the midst of all this research our computer went on the blink and I lost all my "favourites", and I can't now find it.

That was a bit of a marathon post. I'll stop there.....

What is your experience of saddles??