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the seat fell off my bike today

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2017.07.13

The seat fell off my bike as I was crossing a busy street, today. It turned out that the bolt on the seat post, which holds the seat in place, was a bit too short and therefore not entirely strong enough. In other words, I've been pretty lucky that this hasn't happened sooner.

What happened today was that the final ring or two of threading on the nut tore off. I wound up picking up the the nut and the two pieces of the bracket that holds the seat in place. At noon, I reversed the nut and got the seat back on the bike. Riding up to "Cyclepath Norco"* up at Eglinton, I got the bolt replaced for $2.20 and was on my merry way.

It occurred to me as I was pedaling home that this could have something to do with my 10kg of weight gain over the past seven years.

*Cyclepath Norco is another of the stores I remember well from my time living uptown. I bought a bike there in early '05 to commute to work. And though I moved to Japan the following year, I did ride to the office in Toronto for some three months, marking my start with the cycle commuting I've been doing ever since.

Other places I remembered: "Five Doors North"; Kramer's - where I met a girlfriend with whom I'd eventually live for a time; Mariachi's. Unfortunately, some old haunts are gone: one favorite pub's been replaced with something called a "gastropub".

rand()m quote

I feel fortunate that I enjoyed the blandishments of modernity. I had hip replacement and root canal. I was able to travel on airplanes. I was able to take cheap food for granted. I went to the movies. I enjoyed rock 'n' roll. And now I'm ready to move on.

—James Howard Kunstler