Consecutive bicycle work commute number 1839:
The wheel that I trued up on Tuesday night went out of true again on the ride home last night, to the point where I had to release the rear brake caliper to allow the wheel to spin. It was wobbling like a clown bike. When I got home I threw the bike on the repair stand and found two spokes next to each other that had loosened to the point of being non-functional. I'm not sure what caused that. I spent about 45 minutes retensioning spokes until I got all the spokes tight and the wheel spinning true again. I'll have to keep my eye on this wheel, as it may be reaching end of life.
Temp this morning was 35°F. Above freezing on a February morning. That's nutty. I decided to break out the road bike, seeing as there probably wouldn't be much ice on the pavement on a warm morning like this one. Plus I would be heading into the wind on the way to work and the road bike cuts through wind much better than my other bikes.
Normally on Fridays I don't ride all the way to our office, but instead just go to a client downtown. It makes the Friday commute easier at the end of the week when I'm tired. However, today we have a company potluck at the office, so I decided to go ahead and do the longer commute.
Because I made the decision so late in the week, I didn't have anything to bring to the pot luck to share. When I woke up this morning I was craving olives. That's really weird, as I don't think I've ever craved olives before. Anyway, I took this as a sign that I'm supposed to bring olives. Plus, olives are easily transportable by bicycle, unlike a crockpot full of chili.
So, a couple miles from the office I took a detour and stopped at a grocery store. The detour would lengthen my morning commute by about a mile and a half, but it was such nice weather I didn't mind one bit. I bought a couple jars of fancy stuffed olives and threw them in my backpack.
As I was leaving the store, one of the straps on my backpack let loose. After 11 years of heavy use and abuse, the stitching on the strap finally gave out. The heavy backpack suddenly shifted left and slid off my arm. I managed to catch it before it hit the ground. That would have been ugly if the jars of olives broke all over my work clothes.
After examining the situation, I didn't have much choice but to improvise the remaining two miles to work. I put the still functioning strap around my shoulder as normal, but the weight of the loaded backpack wouldn't allow it to stay on my back without two straps. I wound up putting the broken strap over my other shoulder and holding it with my teeth. This quickly proved itself to be very tiring. A co-worker passed me as I rode like this and said it looked like I was suffering.
At my desk at the office I have a box full of safety pins that were left over from a previous pants emergency. Using a bunch of safety pins I temporarily fastened the strap back together. Hopefully my jury rigged solution will get me the eight miles home tonight without having to use my teeth, or accidentally stabbing myself.
