I should be doing some university stuff, I should be continuing to review the literature for my dissertation, but at the moment my crisis of faith in my own abilities is large enough I don’t know if I’m reviewing the right literature, and find it hard to feel the urge to continue to work on my dissertation until I’ve had some feedback, but I know I should, and that thought is starting to eat away at me as the excuses of my old job which left me continuously knackered fade away.
As a way to cheer myself up a bit, and because seeing the new bike’s tatty condition had left me a little dispirited (despite knowing that it won’t cost that much to fix her up, and indeed perhaps gently tweak my bike with some new rims, so I can actually stop without nearly dying when it’s wet), I decided to go down to the garage and see if I could get it at least feeling more like something I can fix.
Within 15 minutes I had unseized the brakes, the rear hub shifter is at least moving (I have no idea if the rear hub is working, but the shifter mechanism is working); I’d rubbed the paint down enough that I’ve accepted a respray is in order. A quick rub with a cloth revealed that the red trim on the paint is, well, dead. What little was left of it came off with virtually no contact.
I’ll see what Kathryn wants to do about the mudguards which are spectacularly sad (paint wise). New ones aren’t exactly expensive, so they could just be replaced at the end of the day, or they can be wirebrushed and resprayed. The chrome of the handlebars too is beyond sad. Polish can only do so much (although I don’t know where my chrome polish is anyway). The saddle is an ancient and tired brooks saddle. These are insanely comfortable when broken in to the relevant riders arse, I’m told. Mine’s certainly way more comfortable than any modern saddle I’ve had. However, the new bike’s* saddle is very tired and abused. Hopefully some leather feed will sort that. Though I suspect it’ll need quite a lot of feeding, the instructions say “don’t leave them out in the wet”; lord knows how many years of out in the wet they’ve had.
But the biggest joy was the Dynohub. I expected very little from it, if anything, so connecting it up to the meter and spinning the wheel I was fairly surprised to see this**:
Emboldened I pulled off the wire to the rear light (which was missing bits anyway), reconnected the lead to the front light, and reconnected the broken wire to the dynohub. Then with some difficulty I balanced the bike on a block of wood on a jack, turned on the light, and spun the front wheel with my foot. Lo:
Let there be light? :)
* She needs a name. I’m assuming she. Kathryn is obviously the one with the naming responsibility.
** Actually a good spin with good balance got readings in the region of 12v. Its nominal rated output is, I think, 6 volts.