A long boring day riding under cloudy skies trying to cover enough distance to escape the rain coming up from the south to meet me now that i’ve eluded the northern snow. Just a long, long day of nothing but riding.
I stop for gas (that’s American for petrol) and notice that the bike is leaking oil. All I can do is keep fingers crossed that the bike will hold up, but I’m pushing it hard every day. It now has 35000 miles on the clock and I’m doing more than 400 a day. 18,000 miles since leaving home. I’m glad I started with a brand new chain and sprocket, otherwise I would already be in trouble.
I stop for a burger (that’s American for health food) and notice that the chain is slack again, and the sprocket is wearing badly. I start to mentally compare the wear rate to the remaining distance to New York but I can’t help fiddling the numbers to make it fit the answer I want and I calculate I’ll probably make it. There’s nothing I can do anyway, I just have to ride and keep checking it.
I very often have song endlessly looping in the back of my mind as I ride, usually an irritating pop-song or something of which I only know one or two lines. Predictably, today’s soundtrack is Amarillo, and for a while at least, yes, actually this is the way.
