~o~
Friday 10th 52F/11C [7.00] A dry but rather windy day is offered. The NW wind will be gusting to 12m/s after lunch. Which suggests a morning ride.
Up at 6.15 after a more difficult night. I got up at 4am for a drink of water feeling unwell. The moon was very bright again. Still 67F/19.4C in the room this morning. Thanks to lighting the stove last night.
Following my online purchase of the Ryet, printed carbon fiber saddle I am being bombarded with spam [adverts from AliExpress.] Most of them for the identical saddle and all its shady? unspecified variants.
After a couple of days sitting at an unnamed airport the export process has started. Delivery date remains unchanged at the 20th. Still 10 days away. The sales advert clearly said 15th-20th delivery. So it has rapidly defaulted to the maximum waiting time.
I just hope it is worth the wait. I have owned so many saddles over the years. That I no longer have much optimism. 99% of the saddles I have tried were designed only for their looks. Never for comfort! It doesn't matter if a saddle weighs as little as a feather if it is uncomfortable beyond a few yards/meters.
Fortunately the boxed [reserve] Brown Brooks is behaving itself so far. I haven't laced it yet. I'll see how it progresses first. I still haven't done a longer ride on it. An unlaced B17 is just asking for a very short life and deep curves. This assumes that a high riding mileage is involved. No longer true for me any more. So this latest B17 may hold up for a bit longer than any of my previous examples.
8.30-9.00. My walk. I had put it off for half an hour. Because it was so dark. Thick clouds have hardly given way to a uniform, grey overcast. The wind wasn't yet a problem. The inevitable problem? Where to go? I have no need to go anywhere in particular. Head into the wind first? Let it help me back home.
10.100 A smidgen of misty blue through the grey lid. I had better find some cycling shorts.
10.15 Nearly ready. First glimpse of sunshine.
10.30-15.00 A 67km ride. It was mostly grey and rather windy. I visited numerous charity shops. The battery charge dropped from 100% to 12%. Close to shutting down. I had one unpleasant moment earlier when the power assistance suddenly vanished a long way from home. This happened before. It was due to a dirty speed sensor at the back hub. I managed to reset the error by switching off and waiting before restarting. A possible casualty of the error was the loss of the GPS mapping screen. It remained blank.
~o~