The gods laugh when you make plans
But our £75 June class sale continues apace!
No sooner did I hit send on the last newsletter, I started to feel a bit under the weather. The day before my partner came home feeling unwell. He said a workmate had a "cold" and maybe he caught it. I usually wear a mask at work anyway, but I'm also a bit blasé about it (kinda like using condoms), so the next day I made doubly sure I was fitted out (Airpop are my favourite - they last for 40 hours and because the peak is further away from your mouth you're not muffled - great for teaching) and proceeded to pump myself full of echinacea, which has kept me cold/flu free for years.
But this wasn't a cold.
After observing my partner's symptoms were not getting better after a few days, I decided to take a covid test - lo and behold, a faint T line appeared, like a light in the fog. "Fuck." I thought. "My ship has come in."
I had managed to avoid getting covid this whole time. Dodged it, ducked it, danced around it, had some very close calls, but not this time.
I won't bore you with the experience (I'm sure you've all had it by now) except I still have a cough that sounds like a T-Rex mating call and I get dizzy/hit by fatigue at random times (Day 22 here). I am relieved that my sense of smell is coming back but I only seem to catch whiffs of offending matters. This isn't the "cold" that people are minimising Covid to be.
My proudest moments were not getting angry at myself for getting it (being ill is not a moral failing) AND setting up the slow cooker to have slices of lemon/ginger simmering away, so I had hot tea on tap. I cancelled 12 saddle fitting appointments and 3 classes, and did not have a meltdown over disappointing our customers. Y’all have been so patient and forgiving.
Luckily the team are self reliant and are able to carry on without me. And my wearing a mask at work probably prevented Amie and Jamie from getting sick. (I still do not understand Western culture's aversion to mask wearing. After all, they are descended from bandits.) While I do hope that I will make a full recovery soon, I am using this time to practice resting, which is incredibly difficult thanks to capitalism, ableism, and my own workaholic programming. So maybe this is actually a good time to implement a new way of thinking, of being kind to myself, and of listening to my body instead. TBH I kind of have no choice.
I am, however, convinced that if our pets contracted covid, humans would take the virus a lot more seriously.
£75 June class sale continues!
Y’all love a good sale, and we’ve got the knowledge. Build up your confidence and get ready for summer cycling with:
Intro to Maintenance
Intro to Indexing Gears
How to Change a Chain & Cassette
Disc Brake Home Maintenance
Emergency Roadside Repairs
BACK IN STOCK: 788 copies left in the whole entire world
Last week in my covid induced haze, I maxed out my credit card buying 788 copies of my now discontinued book, How to Build a Bike. I had to save my babies from being sent to the glue factory, and decided I would take a gamble on becoming the sole distributor. If you would like to buy wholesale copies, get in touch!
I think it’s a super accessible manual for beginners, and lots of other people do too:
As Mark says, it’s not just about building a bike, you can use it as a resource to learn how to remove and replace individual parts of the bike, like pedals and tyres, as well as some more intermediate things like square taper cranks and 1” threaded headsets.
I don’t cover gears or threadless headsets, but if you’re a n00b then you gotta crawl before you run.
That’s all for now friends.
I leave you with another installment of our online masterclass series, this time a Bar Tape-a-Long. It’s like giving your bike a new haircut! Starts at 11 minutes in, unless you are an ACDC fan.
Send me your best covid recovery tips. I am resting my ass off, drinking whole juices (my dad sent me a case of oranges), and going for sorta cold water dips at the reservoir (is 16 degrees even cold tho?)
Until next time,
Jenni x