Isocat! on Nostr: I did it, I finally did it! Rode my bike, I mean, for the first time in 13 years or ...

I did it, I finally did it! Rode my bike, I mean, for the first time in 13 years or so. Last Autumn I bought a new helmet – a very good one with top safety ratings – to eliminate that excuse, but by the time it came in the weather wasn't conducive.

Saturday would've worked if I'd got off my butt and got on my butt, but I didn't before it got drizzly out. Sunday it downright rained. Yesterday was the day. I found that the Kryptonite key on my key ring doesn't fit the lock I'd put on the bike's rack, but that lock had a key in it; fine.

There's no taillamp and no working headlamp (ahem-hem), but I wasn't planning on being out after dark. A big chrome DING-DONG! bell, there is.

The bike is a 1950 Raleigh ("The ALL-STEEL Bicycle"), made in Nottingham, England. I've had it since 1997 or so, and that's about when I put on the Brooks sprung leather saddle. In ~2012 it got new aluminum wheels, built up with new Sturmey-Archer hubs: drum brake front, epicyclic 3-speed + drum brake rear.

First I rode up and down our street: okeh, I can still do this; I guess it's like riding a bicycle. Then over to the community policing station to register it against theft. They were enthusiastic about the cool old bike and took extra pics of the bike with me to promote the registration program, which seems a good one.

Then some more riding. Not a lot; just about a kilometre, as none of these muscles are accustomed to any of this, so easy did it to start. I'm not as flexible as I was; I'll want to see about a rearview mirror of some kind. Maybe they make them as helmet attachments.