Let Sleeping Cycles Lie

I am starting to believe my bike has a soul. This morning, I took it to a repair shop because the rear wheel was wobbling and the tyre was also punctured. The first shop I went to said it would cost more than a 100 pounds to fix, which is a little less than half of what I paid to buy the bike brand new. I guess a bike is worth less than the sum of its parts. With a forlorn expression on my face, I asked him to order the parts and he offered to let me leave my bike with him. I agreed, but a split second later changed my mind. The thought of spending more than 100 pounds over a bike I dislike wasn't going down well at all. I took my bike and left after booking a slot for Friday. I had decided to go to the mechanic near my old house, which was a good two kilometres away. Grimacing at the thought of the long walk there and back to my house, I started down the road only to find another bike shop less than 50 metres from the first one. I checked if he could fix my bike and he agreed to do it the same day for about 60 pounds. I could have hugged him!

Fast forward to the evening, when I picked my bike up, got lost on my way back and took a super roundabout route home. I noticed that my bike had started to make a grating sound which got worse with time. I groaned! It must be the brakes brushing against the wheel again. I huffed and puffed up the hill to my house, feeling like a proper fool for expending all that energy grating my own tyre as though it was a block of cheese. When I reached home and took a closer look, it turned out that it wasn't the brake but eh mudguard that was brushing against the tyre. If i hadn't just spent 60 pounds on it, I would power-slammed my bike. I thought of venting to someone, but its my experience that when you vent, people often don't give you the exact level of sympathy you need, and using the perfect words. I decided I would juist vent on my blog later and take it back to the mechanic tomorrow. As luck would have it, the rain is forecast to pelt down tomorrow. 

There was nothing to do but bury my head into my spreadsheets. Cleaning up data can be therapeutic on rare occasions. But later, as I was having dinner it struck me that I could try to fix it myself by borrowing my housemate's tools. I did so, and managed to adjsut the tyre so that it didn't brush agaisnt the mudguard. Only to have it brush the brakes again! Fate seemed to be crossing its limits. But, after I had tinkered around a bit more, the tyre magically stopped brushing either the brake or the mudguard. I picked my tools and ran, deciding to let sleeping cycles lie. Tomorrow, it might start acting up again, but with a new day comes new hope and new strength.