Skip to main content

The switchover

That I was blogging through April last year is quite helpful to gauge expectations and precedent for bikeable weather this year. Thus, this seems a good place to note for future reference that I took out my 3-season bike on Thursday, April 17.

I'd dropped it off at Natural Cycle for a tune-up at the end of March, so it was ready Apr. 1 already, but, the roads still having some slippery spots and a whole lot of gravel, I decided to stay on the winter bike a while longer to spare my lovely from the worst wet and grit. Then it was hard to gauge when would be an appropriate time to make the switch.

In the end, my bike made the decision for me.

A month before, I'd had a bizarre incident with my drive train where my chain was tugging and pulling and catching and simply feeling wretched. With no measures to fix it, the problem disappeared.

A few days before the fateful Wednesday, I'd been feeling some wonkiness in the drive train but it felt like my right pedal -- which had me worried I'd face another incident of my crank arm (the other side this time) falling off mid-stroke. Instead, Wednesday, I was afflicted by that nasty pulling and catching sensation from my chain. It was irritating on the way to work, so I leaned down and knocked some chunks of the considerable gunk off the cogs in my derailleurs but it was even worse on the way home, to the point where it felt like the chain had actually slipped off the gears.

I promptly parked the bike when I got home, switched over my lock, and it was blue sky from then on.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Money

The high incidence of money talk here is surprising to me, given the scarcity of either hard cash or savings accounts. Not that no one has money here, but living a basically subsistence existence off a jungle farm with only one major crash crop a year means you never have a whole lot of cash -- either on paper or in hand. We're currently entering the season of money here in Bekondo, when the cocoa crop is mostly harvested, dried and sold to buyers. Christmas is party time, not because of Christ but because of cash. It's a lively time for parties, running a generator to power lights and music, trucking in drinks to flow with goodwill. It's the time when schools put their foot down and demand tuition fees be paid or students leave. It's a time of increased crime because people are travelling to visit family and money is around. Taxis double and triple in price -- because they can -- until December 25th, after which the frenzy abruptly stops and prices return to normal (so...
Post a Comment
Read more

Infidel again

I just finished reading Infidel and I have to say I greatly respect this woman. What a story. And what a character, to have endured it all and emerged a determined, principled, passionate but not bitter or unyielding woman. A quote from her book: People are always asking me what it's like to live with death threats. It's like being diagnosed with a chronic disease. It may flare up and kill you, but it may not. It could happen in a week, or not for decades. The people who ask me this have usually grown up in rich countries, Western Europe and [North] America, after the Second World War. They take life for granted. Where I grew up, death is a constant visitor. Which reminds me -- on a related topic, one of the things that bothers me about Islam is how often its followers' reactions to offences are so disproportionate. A Western journalist composes editorial cartoons satirizing the Prophet Mohammad; violence erupts in the Middle East, including attacks on the Danish and Norwe...
2 comments
Read more

The anti-bike blog

OR I do not think [that word] means what you think it means It has become a weekly, almost daily occurrence. A how-to article or blog post will come across my path – usually in my facebook feed – touting the wonders of winter cycling. Not one to learn a lesson quickly, I keep clicking on them. Inevitably, I navigate away in frustration. It’s fun! It’s easy! Anyone can do it! You don’t need special gear; you can even look chic while you’re doing it. Oh, and get off your high horse – being a winter cyclist doesn’t make you special. This is the message of all these articles. Lies, I tell you. Now, far be it from me to dissuade people from cycling, but I think we may need different words for the varying circumstances that fall under the umbrella term “winter cycling.” Take Vancouver and Seattle, for example, where bicycle enthusiasts will talk about “winter” cycling. I’ll grant you that a bone-chilling, relentless, drenching rain is its own special brand of miserable to bi...
4 comments
Read more