Ftrain, by Paul Ford

I spent most of last night truing a bike wheel. It took me a few hours to understand which spokes to tighten to achieve which effect. I had to start over, and loosen every spoke, several times.

Say the curve is slightly to the left and the wheel should move right. Thus you loosen the left spokes and tighten the right spokes, in differing amounts depending on the depth of the curve. It's a wheel, so you need to consider the other side, where the curve is going outward. Tightening one spoke has a tightening effect on other spokes as well. You don't want to do too much of anything.

When all is done and the wheel is smooth I still have a flat indentation--a bulge on an entirely different axis--that I could, in theory, fix with a hammer and a dream. But that's more of a bikeshop matter. I put the tube and tire back on and inflated them; I overinflated them for good measure and put the bike back on its rack.

"Do you feel Zen?" asked my wife from the other room.

"Not really," I said. Then the tube blew out with a force so loud that I was confused. [Wife] came out to see what happened.

"Can you hear me?" she asked.

"I think so," I said. "Whisper in my left ear."

She did, quietly, and I could.

I don't like riding at night in the winter, especially in Manhattan and downtown Brooklyn. There's too much sneakiness from the drivers and too many opportunities for wind gusts, and meandering Christmas shoppers, to push you the three inches necessary so that traffic monsters can gobble you up. I think instead I'll start getting up to loop the park, which will give me as many miles as I want, and then taking the train to work, which will allow me to listen to Jack Benny radio programs on my iThing.

Weight: 293 lbs