Rides 8/6: Turgid Prose

The highlight of these rides was its lowlight, which is the clicking noise coming from my bike and this clicking noise has something to do with my chain, which is quite stretched and in need to replacement, and that means a new cassette too and they told me this at AdMo BicycleSpace yesterday afternoon, but they didn't have the cassette in stock, so I thought that maybe I could check the other BicycleSpace since they said that they might have it but then, after I was almost there, I remembered, after having briefly forgotten after having realized earlier in the afternoon, that I had left my skewer key home and that even if they did have the cassette in stock (I found out this morning  when I called that they didn't), it wouldn't have much better since my wheels were goodly affixed, and so I rode past without stopping in and then down K Street still, but on the sidewalk between North Capitol and Second NE.

But back to the chain. It was the inaugural chain of the Ogre and now it's thoroughly dead. The mechanic asked me how many miles I rode on it and I was like 'a lot' and he was like '???' and I was like 'yeah, a lot' but what I really wanted to say was 'does it really matter? you've already used your chain stretchy tool and determined it's dead, so what's the point of finding out if I'm a Strava addict who knows quantifiable things like the amount of miles I've ridden on the Ogre in the past year' It doesn't much matter, does it? And furthermore, I continued "are all miles equal? Do all miles provide the same wear and tear? If you prick all miles, do they not bleed?" At this point, I was standing on a table. But I went on "Four score and 70 miles ago, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your chains, we didn't bike on Plymouth Rock, Plymouth Rock biked on us, shall we crucify this chain on a cog of gold?, etc., etc." I said the et ceteras, both of them, aloud. For effect. Or is it affect? Anyway, this peroration was solely imagined and I didn't assemble a tired pastiche of bikified speech ripoffs, but instead thanked the mechanic for taking the time to diagnose the problem, a problem that I'll fix, someday.

To work, in the morning, I rode up the way I had been going of late, on First Street and then the MBT and R and across town and up Massachusetts Avenue, chain clicking all the way. From work, after the bike shop, it was down 18th to Q to 11th to New York Avenue to K to 2nd to I NE and then around 13th or 14th I found myself in an alley somewhere behind that stretch of H Street where there's a bunch of restaurants and then over H to the Argonaut, where I sat for a bit and enjoyed a sip or two of the sudsy stuff. Then it was 14th up the hill and then home, more or less.

This week's GP is about two things: a buddy buying a bike and a parent getting peeved. Be sure to read it. There will be a quiz.