Enjoyed reading that, alotronic. Thank you.
I like the photo of the bike in the bath! (You took that picture to show Baxter, didn't you?)
Bikes *are* interesting objects. They're functional items capable of efficiency and elegance. They're near-miraculous in the way they work, because they ought not to work. All that nearly-toppling-over. Add to that the odd fact that they're more difficult to ride slowly than fast - when it really ought to be the other way round. You've just got to commit and then correct as you go along, as you've said to Baxter.
I'm left thinking about the idea of work as laborious and cycling as a means of getting out of a rut. Particularly the question of bringing our 'whole selves' to work - or, rather, being our whole selves - with our passions, enthusiasms or eccentricities applied to work - ought to be profitable, in a self employed mode. Because you hear about people whose work is their passion, where their work doesn't feel like work to them. They just see it as fun; fun that they get paid for. And if you're passionate about something which already exists as an industry, and your skills are of an 'industry standard', you have a calling.