Bizzarro World

Recovering from the depression of facing a weekend when I did not ride. I’m really not depressed about that fact, I am looking at things from the perspective that
I got a BUNCH of (much needed) service work done on my bike.

New (used) temporary bottom bracket. The one I was using (Phil Wood) had a bearing that failed. It will be sent off for service. In the time-being, I will be riding a different set of cranks and a temporary bottom bracket.

This involved changing drivetrain parts too. Different cog and chainring. Mounted front rack and bike computer. I hate the idea of riding with a computer to keep track of mileage, but I will need on for TransIowa. Mounting the front rack, required the move of headlight and a place to mount the computer. I am going with a similar set up as what I used last year. I’ll have to do a photo dump of the set up.

Monday was “bizzaro world.”

I woke up to look at the thermometer that I swear said 28 degrees. Dressed accordingly and stepped out into the morning. As I reached to press the button to close the garage door, the light went off in the garage and the garage door opener stopped working.

Queue the Rod Serling music from the Twilight Zone at this point.

I checked the breakers in the electrical subpanel in the garage. No problem. Power at the outlets, nothing for lights. Re-entered the house. No lights. Appliances worked. Went to the basement to check the main electrical panel. No lights for most of the basement. But, some lights worked just fine. I checked breakers trying to find some degree of commonality and started getting nervous.

I live in an old house that has seen major updating. I’ve rewired everything in the house to the point that I am intimately familiar with where almost each and every wire is in the house. The only thing that seemed common was that all circuits that were not working were in the back entry way of our house.

I felt the ceiling in the area concerned that there may be an electrical fire in the ceiling… Nothing.

Still mystified by what I was experiencing, I woke up my wonderful slumbering spouse to at least let her know what was going on. We talked briefly about what was going on, together trying to figure it out. At some point, we noticed our neighbor out walking the street. I went out to validate that we were not the only ones. Evidently it was some strange electrical brown-out where only part of the electrical service had failed.

Feeling better about leaving everyone at the house I set off to work. Rode by the bank to discover that the temperature was really only 12. Already running much later than I would have liked to have been, I continued riding.

Today was a much nicer almost 40 degrees.