8°C, grey. CR:34 miles

Ordered spares for the winter bike last week. Yesterday was the promised delivery day. No phone call, so I went in this morning. The parts have not arrived. “They’re made in Japan and haven’t arrived on the ship yet”. That’s such an old excuse, I’ve heard it so many times over the years. Presumably there are still open orders from the days I lived in Bristol. The ship will never come in.

Spent all afternoon servicing the race bike. It’s had an on-going problem for years- indexing the gears has been poor. I was very close to a per-d’oing moment- on opening the rear bearings it looked as if the whole thing would spring apart and be impossible to re-assemble. It seems to be okay now after fiddling with sticky grease and poking about with old spokes used like a chop-sticks. It still doesn’t index perfectly even now. Tomorrow, I shall probably try replacing some of the outer sheaths.

Finally, I got my thousand miles done, only just, I might add. It’s a standard that I have hit each year for the last 25 years. Actually, the figure is somewhere around 1,150 this time. 2011 had a very late Easter, so I clocked up 1400 miles that time. Check the cycle-computers again in the morning.

Goodnight.