The frontier

Pawn shop

6684

Mark III

My silent horse

I destroyed my official mountain bike on the way back home from a long ride, some months ago, and since then, given the lockdown and the limited number of cycling shops open, instead of turning my attention to other sports, I took back the "old" bicycle that I had passed to my son. This bike, after only one year I had told him to use it, was in very poor conditions, having been left dusting and rusting under sun and water the whole summer. I dared to ask my son a couple of times what the hell had he done to bring it to such status. His answers were always so elusive that I gave up asking.

So I set myself up to fix it at my best and ride it till the times will consent me to choose the right bicycle shop where to bring the other one and have it back again. I ordered a new chain and gear-pack on a web retailer, met with a colleague engineer one Sunday afternoon and made the necessary repairs. In doing this I refreshed my knowledge of the whole mechanism of the gears, the switches and breaks. Easy to learn, as well as to forget, when you don't deal with them every day.

I remember having bought the new bike because I thought this one was almost at the end of its life, let's say of its career. Still, in the last months there has been no gravel, road or rocky track that I had recently done with the new one, where it couldn't take me. In the meantime, for some magical coincidence (and some well done lubrications) the annoying creaking of the springs of the front shock absorbers has also gone. I can only hear the road and my breath now.

My favourite places

Fleeing from the city

After ten days with no chances of riding my bicycle, that kind of internal fever that grown with inactivity had reached an alarming level. Soon after my return to work at the end of the winter break, I have been closed in my office for ten or more hours a day, preparing the material for an important design review that took place during the last days. Eventually, yesterday, after closing the workshop late at night, I dropped a mail to my nearest collaborators, saying that this morning I would have been late to office ...

A tough moment. Too much to accomplish in short time. No time for doing anything else but work. I'm trying to keep my commitment to walk for 5km a day,  least, not to fall into a state of mental boredom.

Beyond the hill

Sheep

Mark I

...là!!!

Hop

Findings

No flowers for a while ...

Findings

Darkness beyond light

12%

Abandoned places

Icy roads

Breaking the ice

In my original plans, I wanted to take a ride on the very first day of the year. Alas, in the moment of picking my bike out of the cellar, I discovered having a flat tyre, punched by one of those minuscule stones which are spread over the roads in this season of the year, to prevent dangerous slips. I have my reasons to doubt about the usefulness of such initiative on bicycle lanes, but I just can't complain. So I spent the sunny morning of the first day of this year down in the cellar, doing maintenance to my gears.

This morning, albeit the sky was not promising anything good, I decided to go. I put on my scuba-like cycling suit, enough reflective clothing, double thermal socks and went off to get frozen.

It is a pleasant suffering. Climbing along a country road that goes up between two fields of snow, in total silence and the very smell of the snow repay any pain inflicted by the cold.