I rode my Black Sheep bicycle this weekend, Saturday and Sunday. Hammered a bit, both days. I have not ridden it since mid-June, more than three weeks. It continues to squeak, from the seat or the seat post. I disassembled and lubricated the seat mount yesterday; I will clean and lube the seat post next. Despite that annoying squeak it rides beautifully, fast and smooth.
Why haven't I ridden it for three weeks? Weather - I tend to ride the Surly in wet conditions. Travel - we had the week in Oregon and then I had the next week in Svalbard. Tiredness - from all the travel, I feel no need to ride the good bike if I don't have the energy to ride hard. Road conditions - many of the roads I ride had fresh chip seal (rocks in fresh tar) in the past two or three weeks, a good reason, especially in warm weather, not to ride your best bike. Uncertainty - about the Oregon job, about the IPO funding, about our summer plans, all distract me from my exercise goals. Then, a little rest, a bit of good weather, a renewed intensity, and back on the good bike - what a pleasure!
I devoted most of my time this weekend to video processing. I uploaded all the remaining Svalbard summer school video clips from the camera and built a nice 10-minute composite; I think Liz and the students will like it. This afternoon I took fresh video of Mary Lou on Tetley, and by the end of evening we had watched it twice and processed an extract for Mary Lou's blog. We will see if Tetley fans around the country, no, the hemisphere (!) can view it.
Back to the IPO office in BAS tomorrow, after several weeks of working mostly from home. The interim admin assistant starts tomorrow, next phase in the IPO. Both of us, Mary Lou and I, deal with swine flu in our workplaces. We prefer to believe what we read about partial immunity for people our age.
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