I’ve been slow on deciding on my long journey for this year. In the past I’ve been pretty organised but with our new house nearing completion I’ve been delaying plans to disappear for 2-3 weeks: however it’s now or never, as the nights are drawing in, and so I’m planning to continue my journey around the British coast. I’ve done Wales and the south coast and the top right corner of Scottish Britain from Inverness around to Tongue but I have yet to fill in the North West from Tongue down to Connah’s Quay (although my visit to Ardnamurchan in 2019 touched on part of that) and what I have decided to cycle this year, the East Coast. So on 2nd September I shall catch a train from Bristol to Inverness, stay the night in the northernmost city of Britain and then follow the coast as closely as is reasonable until I arrive in Kent where I completed my south coast odyssey last year. I’ve consigned the Boardman to the scrap heap after 4 years of generally good service: after last year’s journey along sandy promenades the entire running gear and brakes needed replacing and the battery died completely. The rebuild would probably have cost me £700+ so I decided to buy a shiny new bike to help me on my way. I decided that I need a bike that has a mid motor drive with a removeable battery and drop handlebars. Over the last 12 months these have become more available, usually described as E gravel bikes and range in cost from about £2500 to in excess of £12,000. After much thought I’ve picked a Van Rysel e-grvl which, as it proudly states on the frame, is designed in Flanders and put together in the Decathlon factory in Lille with components that come from all over the world, but chiefly,and unsurprisingly, from the Far East. I ordered on-line and she was promptly delivered in a box, only requiring me to affix the handlebars and pedals and adjust the seat height.
The bike was delivered with ridiculously fat tyres which would not accomodate mudguards so I swapped those for some I had in stock, put on a rack for the panniers and took Lucy (named for her colour) out an a couple of testing rides up steep hills and across country. The motor is infinitely more powerful than the old Boardman and I can still get at least 100 miles out of a battery charge with my usual style of riding. All was going well, until after 60 miles or so I felt a strange sensation from the left hand pedal, pulled over to investigate and went to unclip from the pedal which involves twisting one’s foot to the side, and the whole crank arm came away with pedal and shoe still attached! Not great. I put it back together and continued riding but it kept recurring so I got in touch with Decathlon who, after some debate, have sent me a replacement bike. This replacement has behaved impeccably so far, and I hope that the problem was caused because someone in the factory didn’t tighten it up to the correct torque. It seems strange that the bolt is not designed, as with pedals, on an opposite thread so that pedalling tightens the crank.
I hope you’ll follow my journey at bailward.co uk.
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