Midday quickie

Just a short update to whet your appetites for later, hopefully this
evening.
I've made an interesting observation over the last few days. It seems
as though, by spending so much time with them, our bikes are starting
to reflect our personalities. Allow me to elaborate:
Top Cat has been having serious problems recently with his chain - it
keeps breaking. Despite this, he continues to blaze the trail, and in
fact the first time the chain broke and the toolkit wasn't present, he
fixed it with a hammer, a rock and a nail. I have interpretted this
particular event as reflecting that moment long ago when Top Cat used
the iron crowbar of his will to beat his personality into compliance.
Two Beat is becoming unstable. His bike is constantly toppling over
when left to it's own devices. A few days ago, it fell over and
knocked my bike into a ditch. I don't think this augurs well for me.
I'll keep you posted...
As for myself, the similarities have been largely external. My bike
has been getting more and more dirty and disgusting as the days go by.
It has also been making odd noises under stress. However, at our most
recent stop, it got a good clean, and is now looking like the lean
mean machine no-one suspected it was :-)