toll

I popped out at lunchtime to get a free tracking-registration thingby from the polices (the usually-barely-visible bikefuzz squad have been out and about all week doing things like grabbing people cycling like twats along Middle Meadow Walk and reprimanding them as well as providing discount securitagging - still one more day of it at Gayfield Square station on Friday) and went back via a slight detour which took me right past Velo Écosse, EBC, Pedals, Biketrax and Macdonald, but my spoke chose not to ping until a few minutes later at the last turn before the office. I would have still had time to get back to the latter for a replacement but waited until hometime and went to Biketrax instead, as they're far lower down the list. After meeting a shadowy well-illuminated figure down a dark bright alley to buy a secondhand singlespeed conversion kit (probably the cheapest way of getting oldbike running again without having to buy expensive mechs or shifters and using a handy spare rear wheel I already own) I repaired and re-straightened the wheel in far less time than it would have taken to swap an innertube and headed home, with it already too murky to try the thing I tried yesterday and leaving few options for doing the other thing I was going to try, so I did this instead.