First ride for the Rickshaw

 This is what one might describe as a landscape about a month ahead of itself.  (That mass of dirty snow is from the rink out of frame to the left; we didn't get that much snow on the ground at any time all winter this year.)

 The Rickshaw, viewed from off the starboard bow.

And off the starboard beam.

That Axiom rack I still think is very pretty, but it's out of production for an obvious reason after I went to put it on the bike; one has to dismount the deck and then get creative.

I still need the non-temporary summer tires, to figure out which of the possible water bottle mounts works with the locks in the lock holders, to add some kind of decking for the front rack (I am less and less thinking that a slab of plywood is a good idea; it seems very likely there will be far too many angles from which that's just a sail), and the thud-buster seatpost.  Got in a very pleasant and uneventful 12km test ride, all the same; the Alfine 8-speed hub is making me think of putting a Rohloff on the Experiment (not very hard, but the silence, the shifting, and the shifting while stopped has much to recommend it), and while the overall directional stability isn't as good as the Experiment (meaning that the front end shakes if I try the "shift track to one side at speed by swinging my legs" trick, rather than behaving as though there are rails in the road) it's pretty good in an absolute sense.

Oh, and to find the actual Berthoud klik-fix mounts for the seat; there are two of them around here somewhere, and I went and put them in a Safe Place.

This bicycle thing is addicitive.

It was somewhat foggy on Saturday, and the forecast's notion that this would burn off by mid-morning turned out not to be the case; it was gloomy and atmospheric at True North. (That's a stonking great crow, not a raven, but you would have had to have been there to hear it calling to be sure of that from this picture.)

The Experiment, down to a frame and delivered for  a combination of fork upgrades to allow SON SL dynohubs to work and re-painting.  (Re-painting being about the only way to get the car scuff from last May off it.)  I continue to be astonished by how much the frame doesn't weigh, all by itself like that.

 The front platform rack for the town bike. I'm referring to this bike as the rickshaw, since much of the goal in having it is to be able to take Aoife for bike rides.  (She appears to really like this, and it makes her much less determined to bolt outside, which I consider a net win.  Cats smart enough to figure out you can't reach through parked cars and to sit there contentedly while you try to entice them out with treats can be very bad for getting to work on time.)
So I'll need to make a deck and a lid for the rack; the deck should be pretty easy, and the lid may well be lamentably like a challenge.

Complete pictures forthcoming when I've got some.

Swans with rock and duck

Mute swans really are a nasty invasive species in Ontario, but it has to be said they've got a firm understanding of the looking elegant.

Obscured ducks

I was originally quite excited about these guys, having thought from the first glimpse that they might be rather early teal.

Getting a better look revealed a pair of gadwall in indirect light, which is solidly in at-least-they're-not-mallards territory but not quite as exciting as teal in Corner Pond.

Sometimes it works

I take a fair number of photos of flying birds.  It's not all that difficult, thanks to modern autofocus and the whole digital marginal costs are minuscule thing, but I don't usually get a really crisp lock on the bird.

Sometimes, though, I've rolled enough dice and it just works.