Going to be a bit oversize

From the viewpoint of airline standard luggage, anyway.
I expect it will be a good deal more straightforward on the train.

The mock-box winds up being 75cm x 75cm by 35cm; probably not any harder to buy than the 71x71x28-ish I was hoping for, but rather bigger.  Getting both racks—the rear rack, really, the front rack is pretty easy—and the fenders in there complicates the problem quite a bit.  So do, apparently, do disk brakes and dynamo hubs.

S&S Machine "Bicycle Torque Coupler" open; not a view one usually gets.

And now, having done got the case size, and obtained the necessary colloidal copper anti-seize compound (required for anything into titanium), I get to put it back together.

More than the rear triangle

Walk bike out into snowy landscape, because at least there's sunlight and sufficient linear distance out there.  Find place to prop bike.  Notice huge, horrible, yellow-of-the-soul-of-evil-mustard "ATM inside" sign in background.  Move bike.  Take pictures of bike.  Bring bike back inside.  Notice, lo!, no memory card in camera.  Curse stupidity of self.  Wait 20 minutes for snow to melt off tires.  Place memory card in camera.  Repeat.  Aoife gets bikkets[1] twice; is now curled up emanating feline pleased-with-universe feelings.

[1]an inescapable ritual necessity; when I come home, she gets treats. She sees no reason there should be any kind of time limit related to how long I'm out of the apartment for, or why; opening the outside door in an arriving sort of way means treats.

TOC: West Toronto Lakeshore

It's official spring; I've seen a singing male red-winged blackbird.

In, it must be admitted, hard cold rain, and lots of it; it rained solid from 08h30 until 13h00 or so, when, conscious of the dropping temperature, the chill creeping into everyone's bones, and the increasing and distressful tendency of the rain to rattle[1], we called it a day.

During said day I saw 25 species; I may have missed a few (because of reconstructing this after the fact; taking notes in the hard driving rain seemed unwise, because the notebook has to go somewhere, which would have meant opening a hole in the goretex or soaking a bag...) but I think this list is correct.


American widgeon
black duck
bufflehead
canvasback
chickadee
Canada goose
common goldeneye
common merganser
greater scaup
herring gull
hooded merganser
long-tailed duck
mallard duck
mute swan
northern cardinal
northern shrike
red-breasted merganser
red-winged blackbird
redhead
ring-billed gull
rock dove
song sparrow
starling
trumpeter swan
white-winged scoter



[1] for those in southern climes, the rain starts rattling when it's thinking about turning into freezing rain, if only it can get the ground to co-operate by going to -1 C or so.

An experiment

So, what started last year as

(the frame builder's laudable habit of putting height marks on the wall) looks like this now:

I still have to find an opportunity to take a full picture outside, in good light, when the entire province of Ontario is not just emerging from two days of rainfall warning, but I have a new bike that fits.

It would be difficult to overestimate how pleased I am about that whole "fits" thing.