Wednesday, February 27, 2013

The rock of your rages

I commuted by bicycle today, and didn't take any photographs. The gears of the bicycle got stuck at the second lowest gear in the morning, probably because of moisture inside the gear cable, which turned into ice when the bicycle was brought outside. Going up steeper hills was ok, but because I couldn't turn the pedals fast enough, max speed was about 19 km/hour.

Nevertheless, the commute took only 63 minutes, not bad at all. This was due to below 0 °C temperatures at night, which froze the hard-packed snow and ice on the ground. Even surface, good grip.

But it was different when returning home. During the day we had +3 °C, which melted the ice inside the gear cable, and thus the gears worked once again. But also the snow on the ground had partly melted, and in places there was 5-10 cm deep ruts in the snow and ice, and the ruts were not straight, they were curving here and then crazily. So, even though the gears worked all right, it took 77 minutes to get home.

On the way I met a guy walking a bicycle, with a punctured rear tire. He asked whether I had a pump in my bicycle sidebag, and I did have, and he managed to get some pressure in the tire and rode some distance. When I passed him again, I asked whether I should give the pump to him, but he said there was a bicycle shop nearby, and he was planning to buy a new tire there.

These photographs were taken on Monday. The length of day is now 10 hours 17 minutes, which means that sun rises when I commute to work. A great thing!

(Posting title is from the poem What Isn’t Mine by Jill Alexander Essbaum.)

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