Protection

If we were in the Netherlands the bikes would all have fully enclosed chains and women with flappy trousers need worry not about grime and getting their stylish breeks chewed by the oily chain. There's still rain to think about and the general muddiness of the not-down-the-side-of-a-major-trunk-road route.

With miles of waxed cotton hanging around I embarked on a sort of gaiter / overboot solution that could be zipped over shoes and breeks keeping both clean (and possibly dry but there's guarantee of that). This one took ages since there was nothing but the general idea of a boot to go on. Many mistakes later it's nearly done. The second one was much faster, though not without its own errors, although I did work out a neat way to make the final seam so that I got both the lining and the outer stitched at the same time, with the seams facing in opposite directions.