T-8: Sunday

May 7, 2023

Environments like this are probably the thing I miss most when I'm touring

Today's weather was brutal. Part global climate change, part living in the tropics.

38°C at 75% humidity with a "feels like" of 49°.

To get myself out of the apartment and get myself coffee, food, and a better place to work than my apartment, I have a habit of turning the a/c off at 6:30 when I get up for my morning pee. Today, this habit manifested in my turning the a/c back on twice more before I finally grumbled my way out of bed at noon for the necessary task of taking my bike in for pre-Tour maintenance.

I need new brake pads, spare brake pads, a tire check, maybe a new tire, and—rather than replacing the decaying hoods on my Microshift brifters—I am due to get a brand new pair of something Shimano. I want to find out why the front derailleur¹ doesn't want to shift, and maybe, just maybe, fix the quick-release MKS pedal I broke last tour² or get a replacement because I honestly hate the pedals I've currently got.

I'm pretty sure it's not supposed to look like that

Switching to a solid-tired yellow-sharebike after I dropped my bike off, I immediately realized that, on account of my bike sitting unused for the past two months, pumping the tires before I left not only would have made for a much more comfortable ride to the shop, it also would have given me the chance to try out my new electric pump³.

I tried to stop at A-to-Z for an afternoon of work and caffeine. Still, they were full enough and had enough reservations on the slate that they couldn't even seat me at the bar—I ended up going to 570 Coffee instead, where I stayed—working on the English draft of Tibetan Medicinal Bathing for the Foreign Languages Press—until it was time for me to head back to Haidian and treat myself to a massage.

¹ It's not like I need to have a triple chain ring with my Rohloff, but since I've got a chain tensioner, I have the ability to have a triple chain ring, and who doesn't want to have a 42-speed bike?

² My un-journaled Chinese New Year's ride around the island

I'm really really bad at concepts like "shortest distance between two points"

³ My Chinese boyfriend has already learned that showing affection to me by buying a fashionable handbag or perfume isn't nearly as effective as buying me bike stuff.

Today's ride: 18 km (11 miles)
Total: 18 km (11 miles)

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Gregory GarceauYour trick worked on me. After many hours of trying to think up witticisms to insert into your title page, I realized "Insert Witty Title Here" was already the witty title.
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1 year ago

Marian RosenbergTo Gregory GarceauI spent a good five or ten minutes trying to come up with anything better and failing
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1 year ago