bargain-shaped object

Expansion later; it will suffice for now to note that a test ride was mostly successful and that further investment (starting with mudguards and brakes and a saddle) has been deemed worthwhile. The width of the tyres means cobbles go almost unnoticed, even the mankier ones I always wish I'd not bothered with on the southbound bit of the north bit of Constitution Street. The existing tyres are usable but the condition of the sidewalls would make me wary of inflating them to proper pressures. The brakes can only currently persuade the bike to slow down, though this is perhaps a design feature of centre-pull cantilevers of which I was hitherto unaware, not having met them previously. Everything else works, though the saddle feels like a bit of thin plastic over a metal frame and is also of a peculiar old-fangled style which doesn't attach to the seatpin via two flexible rails, so the Bike Station will have to be visited whenever I next have a spare lunchtime after I get round to measuring the diameters of all the necessary tubes.

Just as I was getting ready to pop out (after swapping a light over and needlessly removing the (tracknut-locked, rather than QR) wheels with the intention of swapping the tyres and tubes, instead deciding to try the current set when they felt firm enough) it started raining, unfortunate when the test subject still lacked mudguards. Going out without mudguards must have been something I did a lot as a youth (I don't think I bought a set of clip-on guards for oldbike until I moved up here) but is now something I avoid and hadn't had to do for almost a year (when I popped to a shop in the evening which then turned rainy after the rear guard failed on the way home from work). The rain quickly ceased, though I was still aware of the odd stray fleck of water hitting me on the back of the head alongside the larger amount of splashing lower-down which destined my T-shirt for the wash. I'd left the seat much lower than it should have been for testing, just in case I suddenly needed to be able to slam both feet flat on the ground to stop if the brakes failed. Apart from the strange leg position caused by the saddle height it also felt slightly as if the pedal-to-pedal distance was a bit wider than it should be, but (saddle aside) it was surprisingly comfortable when I gingerly mounted it outside the house (before the rain I'd been planning on walking it to the cycle path, but the rain always renders the nearest dogshit-strewn slope somewhat hazardous in the dark) and trundled carefully round to the next-nearest access slope to the path. I'd had to piss about with the brakes a bit to remove the massive wheels but had put everything back a little tighter than previously which still resulted in huge squeakings and very little braking force. The toe-in doesn't seem to be sufficiently-adjustable to stop the squeaking so I'll probably try and clean the rims and see if the calipers from oldbike can be fitted rather than buying any better blocks not made of extra-squeaky brake compound. All gears seem to be accessible, though should be more smoothly accessible after replacing all the cables. The handlebars are slightly off-centre and couldn't be corrected when loosening the headset had no effect as it was a bit too late to be applying mallets to top bolts. The greater wheelbase and upright position feel very stable; whilst I have been deeply familiar with more bicycles (eight or so full-time, with about as many borrows and rentals) than cars (I've only driven four for any length of time and a further five briefly during holiday-hires) I've been on the same one for the last six years, except for odd jaunts on my dad's weirdly-suspension-forked Raleigh Pioneer when visiting Parentshire. When I briefly tried riding Nicky's bike outside in the snow last winter (it coped with the snow, but was just too small to be useful in a ride-to-work sense) I was worried that it was more than just the small frame and short crank that made it feel so weird and unbalanced and that I'd forgotten how to ride any bike other than my own. This reassures me than I can ride other bicycles and that it is just my current frame which makes the steering so twitchy.