ADVENTURE BETTER: Part 3

NOBODY LIKES TO talk about the potential for things to go wrong and, chances are, it might never happen. You can never guess what trouble you might run into, but having a universal plan of attack in your head for any incident can be the difference between a great adventure and an embarrassing farce.

Fail to prepare; prepare to fail. It’s a funny old saying, suggesting that preparing to fail is the wrong thing to be doing. Of course you should prepare for a trip, and nobody wants to prepare to fail, but as part of any preparation you should certainly prepare for failure. Now we’re not suggesting you should morbidly list off all the things that could go wrong and then talk yourself out of ever leaving the house, but having a plan for more common problems you could encounter can save a lot of time and stress. So leaving aside meteor strike or even a, err, worldwide pandemic, the most likely snags are going to be bike trouble, body trouble or