Fresh pavement, odd sounds, and two wheeled pack mules...

After dragging the kids off to school and biking over to the repair shop to pick up the Buick (see yesterday's post), I wheeled off to work. This makes 12 out of 14 work days in the last 3 weeks, and my legs and back are complaining about the increased work. I had only been riding 1-2 days per week earlier in the summer.

The car service shop guy noticed my helmet and asked if I had biked in this morning. I said "Yup." He complimented me and mentioned that it was a good, healthy thing to do. It's nice when people respond positively to my eccentricity. In a locale such as that, I could as easily have been teased for wearing spandex. Of course, it being a Cadillac dealer, they've obviously been well trained to be very polite to the clientele. Most of the employees are much older than I, but to everyone there, I was "sir." or "Mr. TwinDad." Good customer service. I'm sure it works well on their wealthier customers.

It's been unseasonably cold the past few days. There's a rule of thumb that says you should wear knee warmers if the air temperature is below 60deg. F. I didn't really expect to run into that issue in August!

So I get into the second of three neighborhoods I ride through, and get a pleasant surprise! Fresh, smooth pavement!! Summertime.... and the living is easy...

Then I hear this odd rattly pinging noise. Uh-oh. Where's that coming from? Sounds like something is stuck in my spokes. I stop to check. Twice. Nothing. What in the world is making that sound? Finally, it dawns on me. The pavement is fresh. There are little tarballs of asphalt that are essentially loose on top. Hard to see against the matching backdrop. They're sticking to my front tire and flinging off against the inside of my fenders. Sure enough, as soon as I turn off the new pavement back on to the old, a few hundred yards later all is quiet again.

Fast forward to after lunch. One of my co-workers calls. He was going to bring over a load of parts from the other building, but is tied up and cannot. The parts are in four boxes a little bigger than a good size shoebox, but aren't heavy. I have no car!! What am I going to do??? OH NO!!!

Wait. I have a bike. And a rack. And a pannier. And a messenger bag. I'll just pedal over and bring the boxes back. No big deal. If I'm lucky, I can fit two boxes in each bag, and I'm good to go.

Apparently my messenger bag is not as cavernous as I thought. Nor is my pannier. One box per bag, and two left un-stowed. But wait! We have packing tape!!

So, we tape the remaining two boxes together, and then I loosely tape them to the top of my rack. BOY I wish I had brought my rack's bungee-net. My life would be much simpler right now. I carefully, slowly ride back to the office, avoiding the worst of the potholes and cracks. Then I give the boxes a good back-roundhouse kick Chuck Norris style as I dismount. Fortunately the tape held, and the boxes were uninjured.

Boxes delivered safely! Score another one for the two-wheeled pack horse.