nothing to see here

Tum te tum te tum te tum.
*whistle*

etc.

I was all packed and organised and ready to leave promptly this morning in order to get my bike and newfork to the bicycle shop just before it opened to reduce the time spent bikeless whilst waiting for the fork and headset to be fitted and to counteract the slower journey home by pushing the work-start-time forward as much as possible. Unfortunately, when wheeling the bike to the door I discovered that a spoke on the front wheel had snapped overnight. Despite buying a few spare spokes of that length when it looked like the wheel was having a mid-life crisis they were all swiftly used up and after the most recent spoke-breakage I'd had to use a spoke from one of my old bike's old rear wheels, eventually finding one where the nipple didn't immediately round off upon trying to loosen it. Fortunately the spare 20-year-old front wheel was close to hand in the loft and there was a parcel containing two fresh tyres in the dining-room/library. I'd been going to switch the rear tyre to the front, stick a new one on the back and then set up the new rear wheel and tube-and-tyre-up the spare front wheel for emergencies such as this (and for eventual use on oldbike, when it rolls again) but using the new tyre would be much cleaner than switching it from the in-use wheel, though the 23C Armadillo seems much harder to fit than the 25C and 28C I've previously used prior to finding that only a 23C will fit on the back after replacing the front mech. I still managed to leave at almost normal-time but then couldn't leave work until almost fiveish and won't get my bike back until probably Monday.