Tuesday 27th October 2020 - Big Dummy ride to Thurso

A couple of photos from yesterday afternoons ride into town. 

 Had Monday and Tuesday off work and needed to take some forks to the local paint shop to see if they could mix up some touch up paint so decided it would be easier to load them on the Big Dummy. Also needed some other shopping stuff so the perfect choice. 

 It hasn't be out for a couple of months, especially since we have been running the tandem, so needed to ride it to try and see how, and if, it's still relevant to the fleet. It is fun and it can haul a serious amount of gear. So not going anywhere soon that's for sure. 

 It was such a nice day and good to be out riding after the rubbish weather lately. Unfortunately the paint shop was shut Tuesdays according to the sign :) but no problems as I got most other things sorted. Managed to take the forks into the paintshop today and a close enough colour match made. This touch up wasn't for the Big Dummy or even the forks I had with me. The paint was for the Mercian King of Mercia tourer I have had for a long while now. I am putting it back on the road for the winter touring duties and while it is getting on a bit and the paint had thinned etc, it has a few deep scratches in the sort of Kingfisher metallic blue paint, these were badly touched up by the previous owner in a flat pastel light blue that stands out more than the scratches would have. 

I just thought I am not building it up again looking like that, it just looks tatty, like some kid did it with a crayon in a whatever was left in the box. It belittles the superb ride and quality of this frameset. I gave it a quick rub down in spots and touched a few in and it looks 100% better. of course you can see it's been touched in but it doesn't look like a sight impaired colour blind child did it with a three foot paintbrush. The colour is a little bit greener than the original but way better than what was on there. The young guy in the Thurso autoparts who mixed it was really helpful and he did find an almost perfect match, a Peugeot Kingfisher blue, the computer then wouldn't give out the correct details to mix it, so after a while trying we went with the second closest. 

 Hopefully I will start to build that up over the coming weekend. Jamie