After dinner, in my case, for which the daylight window is quickly closing now. An unremarkable little loop except that it was the first time in 11 months that I was riding the Dawes Super Galaxy. It had been sitting in the basement, in need of various small tasks, and there it stayed while I got side-tracked into building up and racing the Van Dessel. It really deserves a full strip and repaint but I finally decided this shouldn't keep me from attending to more immediate needs, as the duplicated effort would be small. So, when I found myself with some time and a partly shaded driveway to work in yesterday afternoon, I dragged it out and reacquainted myself with what needed doing, and chased down the various bits of it that had found gainful employment elsewhere in the fleet in the interim. The Brooks saddle was of course on the Bianchi, but it took a little longer to locate the pedals, freewheel, and chain. I also never even ordered all the parts that should be renewed (cables, pads, hoods, bar tape) and so I threaded the tired, but still safe, cables back in, stripped and repacked the sticky headset, and trued the rear wheel. The old school BB still felt fine and was left in situ for now.

A very short spin around the block before dinner revealed nothing seriously amiss, except that the rear axle nuts had been tightened with insufficient oomph. I even managed to find just enough room to park it in the garage, next to the Bianchi and Van Dessel.

My wife wanted a little time to pursue one of her hobbies after dinner, and I was aware of the wet weather forecast for today, so I quickly returned and mounted my Specialized dual-purpose light up front in white flasher mode, supplemented by my helmet light for rear duty. I really don't like riding in less than full daylight, so this was going to be brief and on quiet roads, an abbreviated version of the northerly loop from my previous ride. The Super G is an old-fashioned tourer with a 3x6 setup, but trying to shift onto the big ring for the downhill stretch I realized I should have checked the limit screw--I dropped my chain. No big deal and in reality, the middle ring and just two or three of the small sprockets was quite sufficient for the modest hills.

I stopped briefly for pictorial documentation (turning the bike into the holy drive side view; in reality I was going the other way):



The dusk is hiding many flaws here, and I don't even like the bar ends pointing down, but the clamp screw is in need of some penetrating oil before it will move. The frame, while comfortable, is a size too large for me. I may need to find a different seatpost. This one is fluted and the flutes end up partially hidden, ready to trap rainwater.

About ten minutes later, I was putting the bike away and heard a train pass this very crossing. We're talking long, slow freight trains here. I could have been stuck on the other side of the tracks for quite some time!

4.7 miles and 230 vertical feet.