bike! bike and tomatoes!

first things first. check out these beautiful babies!



they're growing very slowly, and ripening very slowly, but i have about a dozen little tomatoes sprouting all over. only the yellow pear variety has fruit at the moment.


and look what my cucumber plant made!


it's very exciting being in harvest time. i dug up three little potatoes from the front garden last week, and ate three thumbalina carrots from the allotment today. yum! ziggy and i also have a farm share, so we get a bunch of random vegetables every fortnight, grown by a guy in coquitlam or somewhere. miriam is drying garlic at her house right now, and we're going blueberrying soon. every morning when i make my sandwich to take to work i pick some lettuce and spring onion, and coriander or basil for extra flavour. deeeelicious!

anyway. i do think about things other than my belly. like bikes! remember i said i fell in love with a commuter bike? well, i decided it was a super investment, never had a really nice new bike before, useful staff discount, couldn't live without it, etc. etc.

here's my baby:


oh, and i love it so much! it is a 2007 devinci oslo. the parts were made off shore, but it was assembled in quebec, which is about as local made as a bike gets. it's a hybrid commuter built on an aluminum touring frame, which means it's light but stable. it's got 700c wheels, skinny tyres and flat handbars. here's the specs, if you're interested. it rides like a dream - so fast and responsive, and coasts beautifully. i shaved five minutes off my commute.


you'll notice that the bars are all taped up - that's hockey tape, which covers up the logos and stops the bike from screaming "I'M NEW AND SHINY! STEAL ME!" i've never had such a nice bike before - it's a real responsibility (actually, it's the most expensive thing i own, apart from my laptop. i am really still a poor student).

i have pinheads on the wheels, which is new technology from a company in toronto. you replace the quick release skewers in the wheels with the pinhead skewers, and that means you can't get the wheels off without a special key. my bike will not be one of those sad wheel-less frames you see locked up around the city! i have a big u-lock to look after the frame, and i'm thinking of investing in a bike locker at uni, to keep it dry as well as secure.

this is me lifting the bike one-handed, to show off its Xtreme lightness. it's definitely not as smooth a ride as my old clunker, as the aluminium doesn't absorb any road noise, but the speed makes up for it.


that's about it for my news. i'm still working six days, so between work and sleep i don't do much else. oh, except that missymojay and handy are here! wheee! i luuuuuurve them. we have hung out twice and may be having some sort of extended sleep over in early august, which will be fun and chaotic all at once. it's exciting having visitors! handy talks almost exclusively in australian slang, which makes me love her extra-much. she asked me if i "had to get up at sparrow's" to get to work. :)