I had plenty of excuses not to ride today, but I took each of them on and rode anyways! I cleaned my bike from stem to rear derailleur on Monday night. I also put new tires on, and thought I was ready to go. But this morning the second of my pannier attachments broke. I fixed it with a bungie cord and an old leather toe-strap. Then my blinkie was dead, but I scrounged around in the messy drawer and somehow came up with two AAA batteries. When I got outside and pedaled my first stroke, I almost fell over because my chain had come off. I finally got going, but my rear derailleur was being twitchy, and the whole bike was grinding. I realized that I forgot to re-lube the chain after getting it sparkling clean. So I relied on only 2 gears, which got me the 12 miles to work after all. It was a glorious morning, 45-degrees, sunny, and the maple leaves are still pretty bright. I felt sorry for all those scowling faces stuck in cars in traffic.