Strange Weather Ride

Today started off with light rain, then heavy rain. I really didn't want to ride in that mess, so I tore by bike apart and drove it to the bike shop. I could not find a 36mm wrench to remove my old school bottom bracket, so I took it to the shop. I arrived shortly after 10am when they opened. The same crew was working there as yesterday. Unfortunately there was no mechanic on duty on Saturday. A kid who seemed like he knew what he was doing offered to help and invited me back to the workshop. He expertly removed the old BB, which really was trashed. He asked me where I was from, and I told him. He told me he was from Connecticut. He didn't charge me for the work, and I was on my way. Definitely a cool shop. By now we had a full-blast snow storm. I headed out to the pharmacy to pick up my malaria medication and headed home.

At home I installed the new sealed BB, and the new brake pads. The brakes were not resetting, so I completely disassembled them and put them back together. There was so much grime inside them that the spring had no effect. As I was reassembling everything, Lise asked if we had four good wheels, so I "quickly" changed my flat front and returned her wheel that I had appropriated for the last few weeks. I don't know what it is about Italian rims, but it seems that it is always man vs. machine when I try to change a tube. The rims seem a little too large or something. The tires never just slip back on.

When we left, it was about 37F. We headed across our hill and down through Forus. The roads were quickly dry. We left around 6:30ish and headed toward the airport to ride to the beach. We caught a light rain shower that turned into a little snow. We waited briefly under a bridge, but decided we were getting colder as we cooled down then if we would ride in the rain, so we kept riding. The rain stopped after a few minutes, and we made it to the ocean. It looked like high tide and sand was drifting into the road. We continued south and paused at the top of a hill where we could see the ocean, Stavanger, and the freshly covered mountains off in the distance. I stopped to take a few photos with my phone, which has rather poor quality.

The photo really doesn't capture the mountains behind the hills.
Still wearing winter bike gear.
There were a few huge freighters just off the coast.
Downtown Stavanger appeared to be receiving snow, while we were biking in the sun. We continued further south, then headed inland to catch the road back into Sola. We then became creative and tried to carve out our own shortcut through Sandnes. Our improv worked, but we were off road for a good portion of that leg of the journey. We wound our way home and Lise stopped in for groceries. She was a real trooper considering how little time she has spent on her bike lately- and more importantly- that she is riding a single speed while I have gears! We returned around 8:30 while it was still very light out. It was great to get out- we were both getting a little crazy hanging out in this dungeon all day.