quiet, last on-call weekend

I don't blog about work much (well, maybe: I just did a search of my blog posts with the "work" label, and there's a surprising number of 'em, but many of 'em are about rides on days I shoulda been working, or anxiety related to work, or somesuch). I know that I've put in a few posts about being on-call on a weekend, though. That's gonna end; this is my last on-call weekend for at least a while. My job is adding services for which I don't have the appropriate license, so, while I can cover the over-weeknights, I can't do the weekends. There are three of us in that situation, and the almost-dozen others will have to cover. I'm sorry I can't pitch in and help, but I'm not sorry about having weekends free again.

Tom H and Laura OLPH are up in Ithaca with some of my other riding pals, so no rides with the usual folks. Instead, on Friday afternoon, I re-cabled The Excellent Wife (TEW)'s Cannondale Synapse with the internal routing. Laura and I had tried to do this a couple years ago, but I didn't have a proper ferrule, so I couldn't set the rear brake housing; I panicked and gave the whole thing up for a loss. Well, in the meantime, a few things happened:

• I started a collection of ferrules. Measuring with the calipers, they still all seemed too big, but I got about a dozen different types.
• I've been researching how to do internal routing, and have a few tricks up my sleeve. One of them involves a dental pick. Another doesn't.
• I noticed a crack in the brake housing of TEW's bike. Oh, dear; gonna have to do something...
• I installed the Gevenalle set, and just nailed it. A couple of subsequent problems have been easy fixes, and I now know more about cabling and housing generally.

So on Friday, I re-cabled TEW's bike; I was just finishing up when she drove up. It works fine. The shifting isn't great, but it's never been great; I'm blaming the Tiagra mechanicals. But it DOES shift; the brakes work, and I didn't even need to go deep into my collection of ferrules. (Hint: it's not the size of the existing ferrule that matters; it's the size of the indentation into which it has to go.)

Saturday, I needed to work some, and the weather was dodgy early, so I went out later for a ride. I had no destination in mind, and was surprised to see one of my fellow volunteers at the New Brunswick Bike Exchange pass. I pedaled quick to catch up with Baratier Erebus du Halm, who was on a single speed, and, after a bit of negotiation, we did this route. It was an unexpected pleasure meeting and riding with him.

Today, the morning was going to be free; TEW has taken a shine to this Gennaro's deli that is down the block from where the Main St Cafe used to be. They don't open until 11 on Sundays, but  by leaving the house shortly after 9 and doing this route, I got there just after they opened. They were so happy to see me! (...and am I not a sucker for that!) Enough so that TEW and I dropped in again later in the day when a planned trip to the Polska Fest at the East Brunswick Fairgrounds turned out to be a bust (why is over half of the ground space given to a car show, and whose idea was it to have thudding loud 80's music? We gave it up in the parking lot and went to Gennaro's instead.)

Oh, well. As the uncouth swain in Lycidas, to-morrow to fresh woods, and pastures new. (Not really; I'm just goin' back to work [that I still say I don't blog about much].)