Brompton to the rescue

I haven't been well for the last week or so and until the antibiotics work their magic, I'm not up to the lovely long cycle rides that the glorious weather deserves. I've had to use the car. I even had to put diesel in it - breaking the spider's web which had rather satisfyingly spread across the fuel cap.

The dogs still need exercising though and when I took them out for their usual walk I was so exhausted I had to sit down along the way and slept for a couple of hours on my return. I'm miserable off the bike, too.

So yesterday I hit on the perfect solution. When the going gets tough, the tough...fold. I turned to my trusty Brompton folding bike.

The advantage of the Brompton is that I can fit the bike, a dog crate and two excited spaniels into the back of the car. So that's what I did. It's a ten minute drive to a disused railway line near my home. An early victim of Dr Beeching, it is now popular with walkers, runners and cyclists.

The spaniels, having fun with the Brompton

I go there a lot with the dogs but not normally on my bike because it's an uncomfortable ride  on road tyres. My Brompton, though, has chunky, go-anywhere tyres. I realised that by using this bike, I could give them a really good run in the comparatively short time that my current energy levels allow.

And it worked. We were out for about 40 minutes. I had a very easy-paced ride on the flat, the dogs had a hurtle and this time when we got home, the spaniels were the ones in need of a snooze!