in favour of something lighter

Whilst it was still interestingly different and almost fun to ride on its final journey (even with a hastily-patched mini-pumped mushy front tyre and mushy canti brakes) it was still very twitchy about the gears and soggy around the crank. I would possibly have been slightly less annoyed about having to have used it solidly for the first ten weeks of the year if I'd have taken off the front rack (which gave it a ponderousness very noticeably absent on today's one-way ride) or put the non-spiked tyres back on (as even a mushy 38mm on the front felt springy compared to unnecessary spikes) but I was mostly just grateful to have a spare at all when it took so long to get the money out of Esure for their customer's dangerousness. There will be a new spare in a few days, building-time permitting, which will hopefully be simpler to maintain and will not result in situations like that where this thing sat in the shed with a rusted-solid chain from March to December then shortly afterward spend another two weeks with a snapped chain because I didn't get an opportunity to fix it.