Friday Follies ~~ Installation Please

Life sure does get hectic sometimes.  Try this on for size.

Your life is busy.  It’s the time of year when things start to pop at your job.  It’s also the time of year when stuff that is outside the normal workday picks up.  That’s enough.  It’s getting so scheduling is important.

Then, with exquisite timing, you suddenly find yourself with an honest to goodness  deadline on your hands.  Like those people* have just ganged up and laid a major burden on you.  If you don’t complete a whole slew of very demanding chores, in a very short period of time, they are going to make your life a living trip through the antechambers of perdition.

*Those People:  Lawyers, insurance companies, the infernal revenoors, etc.

In the midst of that, you have a set of fenders to install.

There is no such thing as a simple fender installation.  The “easy” ones are hard, and the hard ones are next to impossible.

If fenders weren’t so incredibly useful, they just wouldn’t be worth the effort.

Most of the time that one rides, the fenders are just a drag on the bike.  But…

Let there come a gully washing, frog-drowning rain, and suddenly fenders are wonderful.

If only they were not so difficult to get right in the first place, and…

I’ve never done a fender install job when I had ample leisure time.  It’s always something that gets crammed in between thirteen dozen other pressing matters.

And now for something completely random:

I once owned, and commuted on, an almost antique Harley-Davidson.  The beast did not have an electric starter.  It also did not have a compression release.  Starting it required jumping (and I do mean jumping) on a kick-start pedal.  It never liked to start when cold, could be cranky about starting at any time, and was especially reluctant to catch on cold mornings. 

On a cold day, repeated hard boots, fiddling with the choke and spark advance were standard procedure.  I’d get quite warmed up before getting the wretched thing running.  But then, I’d be just sitting on it as I rode to work.  Sitting and cooling while riding in the chilly fast moving air.

It did have fenders, but rain gear was lousy.  More, on those days when the temp started out cold, it usually rained while I was at work.  That meant the hog would be extra cranky to start for the trip home.

It seems like some days need to be kick-started, and some are almost as hard to get running as that old Harley, but my bicycle is almost always ready to go, and requires no effort to start.

Bicycles are better.

NOTE:  Remember this coming Sunday is the first of the 65 Mile Audax Tune Up Rides.  Bicycles Unlimited.  Start time 11:00 (sharp)