We've had the Thorn tandem out of action since the seatpost broke on the last day of our cycling holiday about three weeks ago. I'd tried to shift the post stump using a mole wrench but couldn't shift it - though I was being a bit cautious as I wanted to avoid distorting the seatpost remnant which could make things even more difficult.

After seeking advice from local cyclists, the best suggestion was to take the offending seatpost to John the Seatpost Man in Chorley. I decided that taking the whole tandem up was going to be a hassle and, since I planned to give the tandem a good clean up, I stripped the tandem down and only took the rear frame section with us. We'd planned a visit to the Leeds area for family reasons, so we drove up to Chorley before heading east to the Leeds area. This was OK, except the drive to Chorley took ages, due largely to an accident up ahead of us as we skirted Manchester.

On our recent cycle tour in the Hebrides, we managed to drop our backup Garmin bike computer, an Edge 520 Plus, during a fast descent. It hit the deck quite hard, bounced then ended up in a watery ditch. We retrieved it, still functioning despite a badly shattered glass.

The underlying circuit board could be seen through the break, and the corner was abraded off where the device hit the tarmac. As far as I could see, the majority of the screen was still functioning, with a few dark areas at the top and bottom. Here's a photo of the damage.

With our usual favoured tandem out of action pending the removal of the sheared seatpost, I dusted off the spare tandem and we went out for a rather nice ride on a sunny day. I also replaced the seemingly perished tyres with new 28mm Continental GP5000 tyres. That was a struggle in its own right.

Longstaff tandem

Our latest club event was on the quick local course starting on Brogborough hill. We had pretty good conditions for the event, sunny and with a light 9mph headwind out to the turn. I did find the return leg rather tougher than I expected. Also unexpected was  my win in this event, with 23:24.

Full result over at the NBRC website.

Another tranche of albums recommended by the 1001 abums generator. Some really excellent albums here, bust also a few that I can't really understand why they made it onto the list.

On the whole, my album ratings have quite a strong concordance with the global reviews, the main exceptions being hip-hop albums.

With our favourite tandem sidelined until I can take the rear section of the frame to the Seatpost Man in Chorley, I’ve taken it upon myself to sort out the Longstaff tandem.

I had this tandem frame built about 30 years ago and for the last 20 or so years it has seen very little use. It's a rather lovely single marathon frame finished in flam kingfisher blue. I had the frame built for fast riding rather than touring, and it has seen use on a couple of occasions in time trials. The tandem is pretty light for a tandem, but it's really a bit old-fashioned now: it has an elderly Campagnolo tandem chainset, Campagnolo tandem hubs with screw on freewheel, and Dia-Compe cantilevers. Gearing is Campagnolo Ergo-Shift, with a Choris rear mech and a triple front derailleur from  a long unavailable Campagnolo MTB groupset. I built the 40 spoke wheels with Mavic Module 3CD rims and 13G/14G butted spokes. Those rims are a bit limiting regarding tyre width.

I returned to the NBRC club events after the cycle tour of the Hebrides. I've had a bit of a disrupted season so far, with the minor operation taking me out of two club events, plus the tour taking me away from two others. The training has been similarly affected, though the stats indicate that Im (just about) hanging in there.

Anyway, it was back to Astwood for this event, on a sunny evening with a light wind. It seemed to be cooling down quite quickly. I chose to ride the P5 with the deep rim front wheel, which worked out well. We had a field of 9 riders, and all started. Several were on road bikes, including the winner. I came in second, but first on vet standard. I didn't really notice any real problems except for the coach that came at me head on at one point on the lane after turning at Chicheley!

I thought it might be helpful to record some of the technical information pertaining to the tour.

The bike – we rode the Thorn Raven Twin tandem we’d bought back in 2013. This was reviewed over several blog posts on this site. The tandem worked pretty well until the final day of cycling, when the front seatpost snapped, rendering it unrideable. That’s only the second time in my life I’ve had a seatpost snap. Other than that, we found that gear shifting seemed a bit sticky. Perhaps an oil change for the Rohloff hub is due. 

Day 8 Monday Acharacle to Oban - in which we suffer a serious mechanical problem that brought the tour to a sudden end! Monday June 3rd.

Up bright and early for breakfast - pancakes and bacon this morning. After loading everything up and settling our bill with the hotel, we we set off towards Strontian. Our plan for the day was to ride over to Strontian, round the end of Loch Sunart and over the long three mile climb to the equally long descent to Lochaline. From Lochaline we'd catch the ferry to Fishnish on Mull and cycle a few miles down the road to Craignure for the ferry to Oban.

Day 7 Sunday Acharacle (2nd June)

It was a bit hard to believe after yesterday’s excellent weather, but the weather forecast for rain all day turned out to be true. We did get out for about 18 miles in the drizzle, cycling along Ardnamurchan as far as Glenborrodale through lovely mixed woodland. Saw a red squirrel. A very wet red squirrel!