Monday, Monday

Looking at the forecasts, I may or may not get to ride later this week. I am not quite set up for riding in rain at near-freezing temperatures. I ordered a rain cape the other day, so that may change in the not-too-distant future. I'll have to do some experimenting with it once it arrives to judge my willingness to use it.

Given that I've ridden in slightly colder weather than we have this morning, I had no excuse for not riding today. Jenn left shortly before I did, as she was catching the bus for her return to work (she was off work the whole of last week). It felt good to ride, too.

I'm finding it interesting that while my Ryan is faster than the Raleigh, I enjoy something about riding the Raleigh. This is weird for me, as I've been a hard-core recumbent enthusaist for a long time. The Raleigh has been an interesting experience for me, to be sure. The rain cape mentioned above will only work for me on the Raleigh, for example. It's one of the few bike-specific accessories I've bought (not counting bike-specific parts like saddle and rims). Almost all of my other gear is utile on either commuter bike.

On other topics:

Jenn bought a commuter bike Friday. She found a Peugeot at Goodwill for $50 or so. On inspection, the tires, tubes, brake pads, and cables seem sound. The largest repair issue is that both jockey pulleys are broken. Since it is a 1980s-vintage Simplex derailleur, I don't know whether the easily-available Shimano pulleys will work. If not, a replacement derailleur won't be hard to install. Over the coming month or three, we'll get fenders, a rack, lights and better pedals to upgrade the bike from its current state to commuter rig. I'll probably mount a different set of shifters as well, as the current down-tube shifters are less-than-ideal and thumb shifters are easier to use and easy to obtain.

We got the LG&E bill over the weekend, and almost took the bike back. $50 or so for the electric portion, but over $250 for the gas to heat the house for a month. Wow. We now have some ceramic heaters to warm areas we are using without having to heat the whole house as much. I'm willing to take the trade of doubling the electric bill if we can halve the gas bill.