Got up at 5am and was out of the flat three-quarters of an hour later to ride to my friend at Sutton on the Enigma. Didn't get far before a nice bit of green glass gave me a puncture just outside one of the pubs on route... At least the cause of the puncture was easily spotted and removed - I'd also heard it as it went round the wheel and was about to stop and check the noise when it went pssssssssss
Arrived at my friend's, cleaned hands and changed over bikes to my tourer. Ian then attached a preloaded Yak BOB trailer to it and I helped hold his bike while he attached his trailer to his bike.
Now unlike the BOB this was one heck of a trailer - I'll try and get pictures on the forum. Nearly all built by Ian, it was easily long enough to transport a body (standard joke....), built in a style that reminded me of a haywain with four wheels that along with the whole trailer was engineered so that the wheels all remained on the ground irrespective of bumps or hollows. If you're interested in engineering/trailers you really should see this
After the rain of the previous night it was a relief to see the sun and about 6.30am we set off down the road heading towards the A3 at Tolworth having decided that for (relative) speed and ease it would be better to just hit the A3 all the way to Ripley and that at that time of the morning the traffic should be relatively light. It certainly was interesting riding along with the two trailers; being behind I could watch people's reactions. One builder in his lorry even slowed down alongside to have a look
It certainly got a few grins from some of the people in cars. In fact on the whole we didn't really have any problems with traffic - couple of cars passed a little close but hey, that's pretty normal but no one seemed to get angry that we were in the way and moving pretty slow (actually average speed down to Ripley was 11.9mph with a top speed of at least 20 on some of the downhill sections).The most worrying sections were the sliproads onto the A3 and slightly less the exits off so as traffic increased passed Cobham we tended to belt across the slip road to the side as soon as we could.
Arriving safely at the Ripley Village Hall we certainly caused a stir as we swept into the carpark and headed for the field to set up shop next to one of the cycle sale stalwarts (Francis Thurber of Hard to Find). We had plenty of visitors who came over to check Ian's handbuilt trailer out as we transformed it into the table for our wares - in fact some people 'lost' the trailer it did so well as a table (just no leaning on it).
Jumble went pretty well, saw some old acquaintances, Mike Ingram wandered past clutching a new Brookes saddle that he had succumbed to probably at Francis' stall. I sold most of my kit that I had on it - I could have sold my bike a couple of times, one guy jokingly offering me a £1m house for it (probably a good deal as I could then have bought a new bike set up to the same measurements as the Enigma
). However we had to point out that we needed the bikes to get home and tow the trailers...And home we did go, this time on the country roads, via lunch in Cobham and a visit to some old friends to show the trailer to them. I was in bed before 9pm and asleep soon after.
