Mild inconvenience

Listening to: Twilight Singers - A Stitch In Time

I've been ruthlessly exploiting both the nice autumn weather and Fi being on break lately to ride to work as much as I can, managing to use the bike for every commute last week.

This went like a box of swimming fluffy ducks until Friday morning, when I encountered The Shard (so named because it reminded me of The Dark Crystal). I had my camera on me, so here it is recorded for posterity.

I must have picked it up crossing the gutter to get onto Melling Bridge, since I didn't get a few metres across the span before the tire was completely flat. It didn't pop (which I have done to a bike tyre before), or instantly deflate at speed (which I have also done after running over a nail. Entry and exit hole in the tube, plus stress induced cracks either side), but it fell off quickly enough that I carried the bike the rest of the way across the bridge to somewhere I could safely investigate.

The offending piece of glass turned out to be pretty gnarly on removal, enough to pierce the thickest part of the tread and go straight through the tube. Probably part of a beer bottle. I don't know what the story is, but it is hard not to notice the sheer amount of shattered glass around the edges of the road that cyclists inhabit.

Luckily (or self fulfillingly, depending on your outlook), I had bought a spare tube to carry around for this exact eventuality only a couple of weeks ago. I figure it was either just as well, or tempting fate. A few minutes of wayside surgery later and it was sorted.

I patched the incumbent tube over the weekend and put it back on the bike, so retaining the perfect tube as a spare.

So there you have it, an exemplary blog of the mundane :)

I wasn't even annoyed. It was only a minor inconvenience. Reminding me of the relative cosmic scale of things on the other hand, someone I know got refused entry to the US and deported back here last week, which goes somewhat beyond inconvenient, beyond ruining your whole day even, especially as she was going to rejoin her partner who has been working there for the last few years. That sucks on all kinds of levels.