The bike is built - frustation and anger on the road to Bewl

Hi,

It has been a busy few weeks.  I've built up the bike using the components shown here with only a couple of minor issues:

• Fitting the mudguards proved to be a complete pain in the proverbials.  First there was the hard work of filing off the fitting for attaching the mudguard to the frame, I did this in order to be able to insert a screw into the hole and then up into the specially provided eyelet built into the underside of the headtube on the frame.  In addition to that, was the painful process of hacksawing through the stays to make them the correct length for the bike; this would have been easy had I a vice, but I didn't so had to hold them with my fingers whilst filing - three times as I adjusted the length!!!
• Fitting the external bottom bracket was costly.  I ruined one when I stripped the thread whilst trying to insert it into the frame before I had thought it all through.  I suppose the reason that apprentices are poorly paid is because they make goofs like this that cost money.  Anyway, I managed to get there in the end.

The bicycle looks marvellous but the owner doesn't.  My excuse is that it was early in the morning.

The Mercian is nowhere near as responsive and fast as my previous bike was.  I say "was", because my previous bike (Colnago) is now awaiting repair following an unfortunate series of incidents whilst training for the ride.  The first incident happened a couple of weeks back when I picked up a routine puncture on my way home from work.  That left a hole in the tyre which, as a part-time miser, I continued thinking that I could get more wear out of before replacing.  It failed me when 33 miles from home on a training ride to meet up with the family at Bewl Water in Kent.  I went to replace the inner tube thinking that I could limp along, only to find that I had the wrong size replacement tube with a valve that even if I had been able to stretch the tube around the rim, I would not have been able to inflate via because it wasn't long enough to extend beyond the low profile racing rims.  I found the nearest pub and waited for my happy smiling wife to collect me - unfortunately an angry monster with barbed tongue that resembled my happy smiling wife, turned up to collect me instead.

This forced me onto the Mercian for the first time.  I proudly took to the road wearing a baggy jumper that made my belly look larger than it really is (no, honestly, it's true) and gingerly avoided bits of gravel in the road to protect my new darling.  On arriving at work, I parked in the garage as usual, did my work and came to collect her for our next date: flat tyre, no replacement inner tube.  I recall feeling like this only once before, it was the morning I woke up to face a new lover minus her make-up for the first time.  In both cases, I abandoned the cause and returned home nursing a healthy dose of reality.
Next day, I replaced the tube and cycled home only to find another puncture the following morning.  I took to my now repaired, Colnago and whizzed into work for that day.  On the way home a white porsche pulled to the left of the road approximately 30 yards in front of me, to allow an oncoming ambulance to pass.  I hauled on the back brake to slow me from whatever warp factor I had been travelling at, and struggled to control the slewed skid that was rapidly slowing me.  I was too busy focusing on staying on the bike to apply the front brake.  When I finally stopped, I was approximately 1 foot from the back of the Porsche; it was than that I heard "pssft" from the back wheel.  The almost new rear tyre had shredded.  Again I walked home.

No punctures for 2 years then suddenly 3 at once...just like buses.

I'll be writing again soon to inform of my latest training plans.  I think I may end up training en route at this rate!

Paul.