Bike maintenance and other assorted stuff.

I found a spoke tightener on one of my bike multitools, so I used it to tighten up the spokes on my front wheel. I can't understand how they got so loose. The back wheel seems fine. I also checked the brakes - new brake pads not needed on the back, but I replaced the front ones, because I could see metal where there should have been rubber. I'm still waiting for the new wheel from China.

The voltmeter I put on the bike works OK, but when it gets wet it displays 37 volts, a silly number. It isn't as useful as I'd hoped. The good news is that it does, as I expected, show a gradually declining voltage. But I can't read it in sunlight, the red LEDs are washed out by the light. However, I can read it if I shade it with my hand, so it's not too bad.

I had a big problem on Sunday on the bike. I stopped, and used my left foot to push down the kickstand. But in doing that, somehow my bootlace got caught on the back rack. So I could put my right foot on the ground, but not my left foot, and I couldn't dismount from the bike. I was left sitting there for several minutes while I tried to disengage my boot from the bike, kicking backwards with my left foot without really being able to see what I was doing, and I was in grave danger of falling over for a while. A runner sped past, and I seriously thought of asking him to help me - but I didn't, and managed to get free after a while.

Yesterday, as I was whooshing along at about 20 mph, (downhill of course, I can't get up to that sort of speed on the level), a woman in a car stopped and started to wind her window down as I sped past. Did she expect me to slam on my brakes in order to be able to tell her that I had no idea where it was that she was about to ask me directions to? Well, I didn't, I just whooshed on, and if she thought I was rude, let me apologise to her here and now.

I heard my third cuckoo of the year.

On the way home on the A3 near Guildford, I saw a triple rainbow. I don't think I've ever seen a triple before. The main rainbow was extraordinarily bright, and I could see the complete arch, and there was a secondary rainbow just outside of it. And there was a third rainbow, again outside the main, but a distance from it. I wish I'd been able to stop and take a picture.

Dentist today. A slight chip in a tooth; he filled it with hardly any drilling and very little fuss, and it feels OK again.