The stall between faux winter and the real deal.

    Not a whole lot has been going on since the Thanksgiving holiday.  The weather has been a little too cold to be fun, so I've been puttering around in preparation for real winter.  I swapped a couple of tires out, changed some damaged spokes and managed to break a floor pump.  It is strange that things wear out when you use them.  I guess it's a healthy sign that I am biking more than the industry expects.  

 I found the shifters for Nuvinci hub on Byron were freezing again, I took the advice of a reader who commented on a previous post about it.  When I removed the wheels to change tires, I hung the bike up by the front rack and watched water literally dripping from the cables.  I left that overnight,  removed the cables, flooded the housings with WD-40 and let that drain out as well. Not many are aware that water dispersal is one of the few legitimate uses for WD-40.  That is how it got it's name, it was the 40th formula tested as a water dispersing compound to help clean wet machinery. Now with new cables, the shifter is working like a whip in hot butter and I hope it stays that way for the winter.

    I like this time of year, I teach part time in a local school district and people talk about me riding to work in lousy weather.  I love the look on their faces when they ask if I own a car.  I explain that I wash it and change the oil every year whether it needs it or not.  I cleaned it up and moved it into the garage in case I need it during the winter.  The empty stares and slack jaws hanging around the room become amusing.  The other day people in the lounge were talking about gas prices staying surprisingly low since the the election is over.  I said, "Is that important?"  The silence was so satisfying.  

I should probably talk about my underwear.  It's getting cold and I had worn out some of the long johns I had.  So I went shopping for new.   Terramar makes some really nice midweight base layers of Merino wool. They are going for about $25 a pair at the Sierra Trading Post website.  

I got a couple and may get a couple more, 

they're either overstocks

or seconds with blemishes, but at that price, who cares?

The holiday's are coming around and pretty soon even I will be limited to simple and utilitarian riding.   The things I run into are a little scary,

At a coffee shop on the way home.  Take a close look, the earphones are connected to something (Ipod?) in his pocket, he is reading on a tablet, sitting in front of his laptop with his phone sitting next to that.  

 There is barely room for his coffee cup. 

 I don't think he left enough WI-FI for the rest of us to share.

At least he's in a coffee shop and not guilty of distracted driving.