Avid cyclist and reader, Jonathan is no longer having adventures in his secret city. Instead he is spending the first couple weeks of his paid vacation back home in his native archipelago, New York City, with his girlfriend and three cats. Current distractions include listening to The Selecter, Trost, and Louis Jordan, among others.
Follow him on twitter
For my visual learners out there, here's a slideshow about
Presta-valve tubes. They come in differing stem lengths, and I usually
end up with many tubes on hand, all of the wrong length. Not an
insuperable obstacle, however; watch the slides for details.
Another brisk morning, although it's been getting slightly warmer.
Since I moved to the
tent, I've been on the asleep at 10:30, up at six schedule that
everyone inside more or less shares. That plus the cold I'm shaking
off has kept me off the piste in the mornings. Instead I get up, wash
up, dress, clean off the bike's brake pads (I used to check the tire
inflation too, but with the short valve stem
of the current rear tube, it's a little more difficult to use the
gauge), and ride the 400 meters distance to breakfast, then over here
to the internet cafe to catch up on whatever emails I've received
during the night.
I finished Jack
Vance's "To Live Forever" last night and was dumbfounded by how
good it was. I'll write more about it later.
Comments [0]
I fixed another rear-wheel flat this afternoon. This one was a
good-sized tear right by the valve, forcing the issue of whether to
patch the tube or to replace it. So I duped my buddy Tom into helping
me with the chain tension by first listening to him tell me about his
Ancient Order of Hibernians chapter and then telling him about this
cylinder recording of Edward Meeker singing 'The A.O.H's. [sic] of the
U.S.A.' from 1915.
It was a little tricky because the new tube had a shorter valve stem
than the punctured tube, and its business end was just peeking out of
the tube, not far enough to attach the pump. So I remembered a trick
I'd used before and pulled out the Schraeder adapter, which was able
to screw onto the end of the valve and allow me to fill the tube with
air anyway.
The funny thing is that I spent the rest of the afternoon wondering if
there was some kind of bad mojo that had caused my flat. I keep having
to remind myself, "There's plenty of air in the tube. I could hit a
shard of glass or a staple any time. I had enough air in there for a
week, so it's not like there was some kind of slow leak. It's a tear
in the tube and there's nothing I can do about it."
Comments [0]
Comments [2]