Well, an eventful ride to say the least. Set off with what turned out to be far too much food and drink for the trip, but this turned out to be a good thing. Was feeling rather weighed down with this and rather sluggish. I don't think my occasional commutes on the bike are enough to prepare me for long distance rides. Weather was sunny, with a light wind, although it clouded over during the ride, and felt cold out of the sun. Just out of East Horsley and on my way to Green Dene my chain snapped as I was changing gear, also my front derailleur got twisted round. Can't tell if the derailleur snapped the chain or the chain break twisted the derailler round - suspect the former. No matter, I'll just fix this with my handy Lezyne multi-tool. Turns out the chain splitter was missing the threaded bit so was useless. Pondered this for a bit, then decided to walk to a pub and call Silvi to come and pick me up. Had walked only 50 yards before an angel of mercy (disquised as a cyclist) asked if I was alright. So he has the same multi-tool as me, but it was complete. First he fixed the derailleur, then removed a couple of links from the bent snapped ends and spliced the chain together (with my help which was crap - he had to rethread the chain through the jockey wheels before splicing as I'd got it wrong - I can see me having to break the chain twice if my multi-tool was complete in order to correct my mistake). That should see you home but be careful as that link is weaker than it should be, he said. I thanked him very much. And that should have been that. A sensible person would have rode home carefully, completing 32 miles out of the century. So I decided to continue for a bit, just to test it out. Turns out it seemed OK. The gears were all over the place, but it was possible to change them - usually three clicks gets the desired result. I guess I should have tried to tune them a bit but decided I would get used to them. The front derailleur didn't want to get into the big ring, not a problem going up Green Dene, but a problem on flats if I was going to do a century. I eventually worked out that if I changed up at the back all the way to top gear, then changed up to the big ring while at the same time changing down a gear or two at the back it sometimes got into the big ring. Also my rear brake was rubbing on the wheel a bit as it was failing to open fully, so at junctions I would prise it open, and in the meantime try to only use the front brake - a somewhat hairy procedure on steep downhills. Then there was a strange rubbing coming from the cranks, creating friction, and this got worse and worse throughout the ride. This sounds like I don't look after my bike, but I do - I'd only cleaned and lubed the usual bits the evening before. Anyway this was wearing over the course of the ride - I was quite a bit slower than I expected and definitely more tired than usual. Methinks a delicate exploration of Bess' nether regions (aka BB) is in order. So the next event was just south of Shere, where the road was closed and a tree fallen down across it. Some kind soul had chainsawed a whole in the middle of the foliage and I and other cyclists could lift our bikes through the whole and then climb through. It was while climbing through that the branch I was using to heave myself over gave way and I fell out of the tree onto my back. Now all that food in my rear pockets blanketed my fall so no injury there. My left elbow took the brunt unfortunately and that is now very sore and bruised. However, it still worked, so I climbed back through with the aid of another cyclist, removed a squashed banana from a back pocket and consigned it to the hedge, but decided not to go near a couple of burst gels until back at home (I don't use them anyway, just take them for insurance) and set off again. No more events for a while, I'd wasted quite a bit of time and needed to get a wriggle on. The route was a new one I'd dreamed up and went through some areas I knew and some I didn't. At one point I went past Mannings Heath Golf Course, the scene of a personal triumph in my tender years. Also I passed Worth Abbey, scene of no triumphs whatsoever during my formative years at school but scene of a personal triumph in the form of my first wedding. It also went through Bletchingley, where I used to live at one time. Only one road in the whole ride was completely flooded, thankfully only a few inches, which is testament to my wayfinding - I devised the route with a page open on the Environment Agency's flood warnings, and basically aimed to avoid all such areas. My final events were two other trees across the road near Tadworth which I had to climb through / over. This time no clumsy falls. Finally made it home shortly before sunset, having set off at 9:15am - rather poor, must do better.