First 3 days of biking in England

We had no problems catching the train to Oxford. We had to cram our bikes into the entryway of the last car. The English trains are a bit cramped and don't do anything special to accomodate bikes. Got to Oxford around 11AM and immediately started biking. The weather and countryside were beautiful. All was going fine until about 4PM and my rear derailleur starting acting up. I thought maybe it had just gotten bent. I tried to bend it back into alignment. I got back on my bike and almost immediately, the chain caught and as I pedaled, I broke the rear derailleur in two. That was a real show stopper, but fortunately we were right by the Cotswold Water Park. I went into a store and made numerous phone calls to local bike shops. They all acted surprised that I had a 10-speed cassette. I thought it was a lot more common. Luckily, there was a very nice hotel in the water park, and we stayed there. It had internet access, so I got a hold of several people (my cousin Paul and Dave Baer). Dave advised me on what to tell the bike shop guys I needed.

The next morning, I got a cab into Cirenshire (sp?) and went to a bike store that was recommended by the hotel. The guy fixed me up as best as he could, but it turned at that my hangar was extremely bent and the large ring in front had bent teeth. I don't know how that happened. He got it into the best alignment that he could, but it still isn't hitting on all cylinders. I biked back to the Cotswold Water Park hotel and Jordan and I hit the road by 1PM.

We had an extremely hard day of biking. Scenery was beautiful, but very hilly. We finally made it to a campground around 7:30, but they said they were full. What total BS. We could have easily pitched a tent in numerous spots there. I used my Garmin to find a little hotel called Hollie's in Westbury. They had a room for 45 pounds and it was only a few clicks away (that's kilometers). By the way, the Garmin has been fantastic! I would be hopelessly lost without it.

We got up kind of late this morning and took off from Westbury. Jordan was following me a little too closely and I hit my brakes as I approached an intersection. Jordan ran into me and fell off her bike. The intersections in England are tricky and I could not tell who had the right of way, so I stopped suddenly. Several women got out of their cars and came to Jordan's aid. She kept a "stiff upper lip", although she was pretty shook up. We continued without mishap and are now in Salisbury. What a cool town! I am in a hug pub drinking a brew and letting all of you know we are OK and on schedule. I will get more pictures on the site later when I have more time. We still have an hour to bike to get to our campsite.