A drooping head with unfamiliar eyes

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The photographs were taken on February 24th at Velskola.

I received yesterday the new bicycle, and got it ready for riding, installing the lock pedals and front and back light. However, I noticed that the bicycle had a Shimano Nexus 8 gear hub installed. I thought I would be getting a Shimano Alfine 8 gear hub, based on the information at the web pages of the shop.

I sent an e-mail complaining about this. The shop told that this was a copying error on their web pages, referring to the description of the maker of the bicycle. Also, they indicated that the price difference between the Nexus and Alfine gear hub isn't that great. Well, I thought about this for a while, and went ahead and asked for studded winter tires as compensation (Schwalbe Marathon Winter). The shop said that they can give one tire free if I buy one, and I accepted, given that the tire was on sale, at 29 percent discount.

My old bicycle had a Nexus 8 gear hub, similar to the one in the new bicycle, except that the color is now black. However, the shiftlever is different. I did a test run of the bicycle today, and had some trouble adapting to the shiftlever, missing gears and changing gears to the wrong direction. On the other hand, the geometry of the bicycle seems good, in fact better than with the old bicycle. The old was 59 cm in size and the new is 58 cm.

The day didn't end so well, though. We got 5 cm of snow last night. Some of it melted and some of it turned into ice. I had slick summer tires in the bicycle, and I fell down. Fortunately I didn't have much speed, but it hurt, and I got some road rash in my arm. The knee got hit as well, but no open wounds there, which is better than last November. I'm not sure whether I'm able to do much walking during the weekend, due to soreness and muscle pain.

I really shouldn't have tried riding the bicycle with the summer tires. When there is ice on the road, studded winter tires are a necessity. I should have waited for them to arrive.

(Posting title is from the poem The Flight by Grace Schulman.)