New (old) bike

Today was rather interesting. Showed off the home to more (rather nice) interested (and prospective house mate) people, and reached for work at some 11:30 or so. So far things were pretty normal. And then this shows up in the mail, at 11:42.

Hi all,

A former student in our lab has moved away and left his bike in Ann Arbor …
The bike will be offered on a first-come, first serve basis …

(Obviously clipped to the interesting bits because you must be the busy sorts.)

11:44, I have a new (old) bike. Which was pretty good, considering it is a rather decent 18 speed mountain terrain thing. You know, because I am the rough and tough sorts who’ll use it on his next expedition. Anyway, it must be in 20s outside. (Real world units -6 C). Why is that important? Get to that in a bit. So here I am, new bike and all, so the obvious impulse is to check it out. So, wheel it down to the nearest gas station (gasp, I didn’t even think petrol bunk), and filled up the tires (and yes, I didn’t think tyres either). Now the interesting thing here is our friend compressor doesn’t have a pressure gauge, and I have no way of knowing necessary details. Fearing not, I take it out for a spin. It was well balanced (meaning 23 or not, risk breaking teeth or not, you tend to not hold the handle bar as much) and generally fun. An hour or so later I get home and realize I have no way of chaining it to anything. So I wheel it in to the house looking for a makeshift solution, while I begin to wonder, hmm.. 70 degrees inside, 40-50 degree difference from the rest of the environment, I wonder how much the tire tubes will expand. KA-BLAM!! (Reminiscent of fun 60’s and 70’s shows involving grown men running around in tights fighting crime), and I’ve blown one tire. Needless to say, I almost emptied the other one in a little bit. Needless to say, coefficients of thermal expansion are not always your friend.

Needless to say, ah well, with the general scheme of things, I expected no better.

5 thoughts on “New (old) bike”

  1. I don’t think people are entirely too worried or put too much thought into what it is they are really saying, as long as the general intent gets across :).

    That said, as far as I know, I think the general establishment dealing with the act of selling fuel is referred to as the “petrol bunk” (though in all probability, it sells diesel too, and more importantly, deep into rural areas, only diesel – things which you can only learn the hard way).

    And I am quite sure they were saying “petrol pump”, I guess being ambiguous about whether they were referring to the machine dispensing the fuel, or the establishment.

    Then again, I could be wrong.

  2. there are a lot of things that i heard as a child that ended up being way off, so it wouldn’t surprise me if it were bunk and not pump. tyres, i had no clue about either.

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