Friday 4 September 2015

The Road Through Cheltenham

When I left Alveston yesterday lunchtime, I quickly became confused.  My route instructions said to cross over the railway tracks and take the fifth turning on the right. I passed under a railway bridge and started counting, but I wasn't sure what counted as a turning and what didn't, and then I lost track. I stopped at a decently-sized right turn and wondered if it was the right one, but I was in the middle of the sticks and there was no name sign for the road so I couldn't tell. I fished out my phone and pulled up googlemaps, and my phone was like "Oh did you want mobile data? LOL."  So I decided to cycle on a little way and see if I could find a road with the right name sign, and if I didn't then I'd come back and try this road.

When I put my foot back to the pedal and glanced down at the electric control panel, it had gone dark. Huh, I thought, I didn't turn off the panel when I stopped, did I?  I pressed the 'on' button. Nothing happened.

Oh god, I thought. Oh god, the electrics have died again. Oh please, not now, no no no no no...

I jumped off Flo and turned the battery off.  I slid it out, blew into its sockets for good measure (hey, it worked with Megadrive cartridges), slid it back in, turned it on. Pressed the 'on' button on the control panel.

It lit up.  It was all I could do to keep from cackling "IT'S ALIIIIIIVE" at the top of my voice.  But then half the lights went dead again, and her low battery warning light began blinking.  I had only just charged her back to full power not fifteen minutes before. This simply wasn't possible.

There followed an awful thirty minute montage of me picking turnings without being sure if I was going the wrong way, while Florence steadily insisted to me that her power was about to fail. I hoped it was just a sensor error and that she would get me all the way to Cheltenham with her warning light blinking away, but then it happened - in the middle of cycling along, the control panel went dark and the battery went dead. I reset the battery again - the battery lights were consistently saying it was full of charge. And this time, the control panel lit right back up to full power, and I offered thanks to the heavens. But half a mile later, it suddenly dropped back down to that blinking warning light, and the motor began fading in and out of operation in fits and starts. It whirred for two seconds, stopped for a second; whirred for three seconds, stopped for a second. A mile later it cut out altogether, and the panel went dark again. Under my breath, I said a great many unrepeatable things, and considered whether to turn around. I could make it back to Bristol on leg power if I had to. I could not make it to York on leg power.

But I found that, so long as I kept resetting the battery when the power cut out, she would keep going, in that start-stop temperamental fashion. And if I turned back now, I would be wasting all the money I'd spent on beds for the night, and I'd have to shell out for an expensive last minute train ticket to visit Moira, and everything would be sadness because I couldn't do my cycle trip. So I decided to press ahead. If the electrics died altogether, then I would see where I was and figure out what I needed to do. But if it was just going to be like this all the way then so be it; I was not turning back if there was any way of avoiding it.

So we went through a start-stop-reset routine for the next three miles or so, me gritting my teeth and wincing, always afraid that maybe this was the time when she wouldn't come back online at all. And then all of a sudden, she jumped back up from that one blinking light to three out of four lights, and the motor began running consistently again. I hardly dared to breathe every time I looked down to check the power supply, but it wasn't dipping. A mile later, she reconsidered her position, and went right back up to four lights.

She behaved perfectly well all the rest of the way to Cheltenham, which was another twenty miles.  The only troubles we had after that were with the towpath, which in several parts was just a puddly mud streak running alongside the canal into Gloucester. Florence fishtailed pretty badly at one point, and for a hideous second I thought we were both going in the drink. We slowed right down after that - better to get to Cheltenham several hours late than risk going for a swim. At Gloucester Docks I stopped to stretch my back, and to scrape endless reams of filth out of Florence's rear mudguard with a tyre lever.

I hadn't been able to find anyone to couchsurf with in Cheltenham or Gloucester so I'd ended up booking a spare bedroom through Air BnB. The room was lovely, I went to bed early and then was up at half past five this morning, forcing breakfast into my face and getting back on the road. Florence has been on her best behaviour all morning, thank goodness; no sign of any further power troubles so far. *touches ALL the wood*

So: I have achieved Alcester!  I am sitting in a delightful coffee shop with a chai latte and a vanilla pastry inside me.  Flo's battery is slurping up charge.  Around one o' clock I shall Lunch here, and then I'll be off again. Birmingham hhhhoooo!

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