occasional speckles of use

I almost left the seat from properbike in place so that I'd be compelled to ride this into work tomorrow, but as it would have meant changing bags on a morning when I want to be up and out early I swapped it back. The semi-permanent extra saddle ought to arrive from eBay tomorrow anyway. The difference a comfortable saddle made was very noticeable, even if it would have required tweaking (particularly downwards, nose-wise) if it was going to be there for any length of time. The cheap but rail-fitting thing I found in the bin at TBS only has very short rails (too short to mount the spare mount for the saddle-pack) and must absorb a bit less bump as a result. Whilst my normal saddle has had a noticeable lean-to-the-left for some time it's still unnoticeably comfy, with nice long and flexible rails and a rear section which must be the right width for my arsebones.

I had been planning to test the swap-saddled newoldbike on a pseudocommute to see what it would be like over a commute sort of distance, perhaps also getting an idea of how long it might take; I have a spare freebie-computer (acquired during A Better Way to Work week last year) which could be fitted in lieu of forking out for an additional detector for the replacement computer I acquired third-hand earlier in the year but have yet to get round to it. Whilst it feels quite fast to ride due to the increased sensation of airflow in the upright position (and the ease of applying pressure to the pedals when most of my weight is above my legs) I was trying to notice how fast the scenery to each side was going past this evening and felt it to be much slower than it would have been passing were I leaning forward above skinnier tyres. Perhaps the increased airflow for upright positions is how so many of the people I see cycling wearing zipped-up anoraks and full-length trousers can get away with it without melting. I'd been quite enjoying the increasingly-cool air up until the start of this week, choosing the wrong day to try taking the NEPN with its distinct absence of exposure to cooling breezes.

Instead of going particularly far I just headed out to Seafield then past the giant pipe farm (in which some very large vehicles were chugging about creating huge clouds of vapour through which the floodlights' beams were interestingly visible) to the closed-off link to Bath Road. Disappointingly, the rutted surroundings of the rails between sections of Forth Ports premises have been replaced by sturdy-looking concrete blocks, which seem to be surviving the passage of heavily-laden goods vehicles and which bodes well for the tram track surrounds if a similar method is used to stop them getting chewed to buggery by buses within a couple of months of replacement. There was a random car parked at a gate on the north edge of the pipe farm and three lights bobbing around on the shore beyond the sea wall, which I stared at for a while to try and work out their purpose and whether they were hand-held or head-mounted. They might have worked as a long-exposure (I think I once tried to catch someone walking along the top of the crags carrying a torch) but with only the one realtively wide lens there's have been a lot of burnt-out Fifelights in the top of the frame.