It's the good advice that you just didn't take

I had, as you will know if you read yesterday's post, a good rest yesterday. I did feel fairly zonked in the morning, but by the time mid-afternoon came round, brownie points in the bank, sun still high in the fluffy white clouds-azure sky day, all my backed-up Sky plus programmes watched, I was so twitchy to get out on the bike it was uncomfortable.

But I rode it out, if you'll pardon the pun because today was scheduled to be Bristol's Big Bike ride, and I was really looking forward to it. I'm becoming more and more fond of "the rules" (note, those of you who don't care for straightforward Anglo-Saxon language may care to avoid these rules)

http://www.velominati.com/blog/the-rules/

and with rule 5, 9 and 21 to the fore, I figured that despite the atrocious forecast, what doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

Because I was so rested I woke before my alarm went on (or went off depending on your fancy), and had a thought. These new super-skinny 20mm tyres are not good in the wet. I'll swap my wheels from K1 for the day, after all, don't want any mishaps do I?

If you thought yesterday was ironic, well that decision surpasses any vestiges of the word that can exist.

I picked Skip up and we drove into Bristol, parked at work in our basement courtesy of a secured car park space, and changed into full wet weather gear. Not only was the rain torrential, it was blowing a fair gale too, a nice south-easterly that I expected to be a horrendous cross wind on the M5 Avon bridge, and a headwind across the levels to the base of Brockley Coombe.

Last year 5000 people turned up for BBBR, this year it looked like only a couple of hundred hardy souls had braved it, but you know what, see rule 5 I thought, I'm going to enjoy this in the same way I enjoyed Exmoor Beast 2009. See Rule 9. At that event the organisers, faced with far, far, worse conditions, let us ride to an altitude of 1500 feet, around 100km of wild moorland, and we all thumbed our noses and the elf from safety.

Unfortunately the BBBR organisers are as weak as that man's clenbuterol concentration (it's still a banned substance though), and five minutes, yes five minutes before the start they cancelled the whole thing. As well as the weather they blamed an accident on the Portway. Well, Skip and I decided to thumb our noses again, as did many others, and we went anyway, figuring it would take them hours to get the signs down, and that didn't matter anyway, because we know the route. It's only 38 miles, what could possibly go wrong.

I was off like a rat up an aqueduct, past the coned-off accident which was as much of a danger as the West Ham strikers last season, and bombed down the Portway towards the M5 pedestrian bridge. Just before I got there bombed seemed appropriate as "bang" my back tyre blew. We quickly found a sheltered (and unfortunately dark) spot and 13 minutes later we were off again, up onto a very windy bridge, and another puncture.

Once onto the other side it soon became apparent that the cause was a very small split in the external tyre wall, along a seam. Given the few miles I have done on them, it must have been there for some time, but I haven't ridden them since Mad March Hare. It also explains the blow-out I had back in February outside Glastonbury. So best laid plans AGAIN!

The Captain came to our rescue, both bikes into the back of his car and back to the office.  Big, big thank you to him, I am in your debt, and look forward to returning the very generous favour. We changed, I grumbled for England and we went home. Below is the shortest ever output I have had from Charlie Garmin:

http://ridewithgps.com/routes/470793

I tell you, by this time next week I will make a coiled spring look as lax as the Spanish cycling Federation.

All I can say is that I expect the Somerset 100 to be terrible, I will have a shocker, my bike will fail on multiple occasions and I expect the weather to be the worst in living memory. Is someone trying to tell me something?