Sunday (short) bike-run

My day moved from a feeling of incompetence to a feeling of reasonable competence, so that was good...

I had to drop off my bike and gear back at Cadence in Tribeca, Tribike Transport's local affiliate - distracting moment this morning when I realized that Cadence has just announced that their NY store is closing on May 17! - Tribike Transport has yet to announce new pick-up location - no point worrying - fortunately I do not have the kind of relationship with my bicycle where this would make me fret, I trust they will have sorted it out by the time I get back from Florida...

SO.

... Hmmmm, haven't cleaned and lubed my chain since last season, better do something about that - haven't wiped any of the mud off the bike either - wait a minute, why isn't the chain lube and rags in the 'triathlon closet'? - Oh, wait, I MOVED TO A NEW APARTMENT since I last used that stuff...

ONE HOUR LATER - an hour of increasingly frantic searching...

... OK, let me move the ottoman again and stand on it to get that box back from the top shelf and see if maybe I missed it the first time - oh wait... - yeah, I guess there is a strange logic to having put the bike stuff at the back of the kitchen drawer that has my large collection of water bottles in it...

It was a similar saga with the pedal wrench (you have to take off the pedals for shipping). I laid hands on the wrench itself pretty quickly, an 8mm hex wrench with a yellow handle that was in fact in the TOOL DRAWER in the kitchen. I spent some minutes perplexedly pondering the fact that the hexagonal thing on the pedals was at least 2mm larger than the wrench before it dimly dawned on me that, yes, I had had new pedals put on in July, and that there was a good chance they used the regular kind of pedal wrench (which I do fortunately have one of, since I bought it before I realized the old pedals needed the other kind - I had opened the plastic wrapper, and the obnoxious fellow at the UWS bike shop would not take it back as a return!)...

Packed up my bag full of various triathlon kit and rode downtown, for the first time ever not feeling as thought the backpack was going to tip me over - I think I am making mild progress (though also I realize it is better to use my moderate-sized cycling backpack than the utterly huge Tyr transition bag, which would topple over a better cyclist than I). Had pleasant conversation with the fellow at Cadence - they are incomparably better-organized than the SBR folks were last year! - I am sorry they're closing - took off pedals in FULLY COMPETENT MANNER and tucked 'em with wrench in bag, so I really feel ON TOP OF THINGS NOW - and then ran back home.

Call it 6.5 miles bike, 6.5 miles run - a mini-brick. I am THOROUGHLY dehydrated and underfueled at this point - I meant to have done this all more like in the early afternoon, only everything bicycle-related takes longer than one might rationally think possible...