Where to from here?

Almost three years ago my daughter observed "Daddy needs to buy a NEW wife!!"

If only life was that simple.

Instead, I bought an Peugeot NS22 folding bicycle, from about 1972.  It had received a shockingly bad paint job by the previous owner, white on just about everything, including the chain guard, carrier racks, stand and stem.  The paint was so lumpy that every little bit of dirt stuck to it, it looked awful.  However, everything worked and it did have almost new Michelin tyres, the difficult to obtain 550A / 22" size.  Like below, but mine was awful white and is now being converted to blue:

The mudguards and chainguard appear to be stainless steel.  I decided to strip it down and spray paint it with Wattyl Killrust epoxy gloss enamel, ultra blue, which seems very similar to French racing blue.  The third coat is drying while I type this.  The bike is hanging from a swing set in the sunshine.  French racing blue should surely help the bike go faster.  Both racks have also been painted white by the previous owner.  I intend to paint my racks black.

I have an experimental hill where I take various bicycles and roll down without pedalling, timing the trip to get a measure of rolling and wind resistance.  The NS22 returned a very respectable 80 seconds, which I attribute to the quality well-inflated tyres.  Most mountain bikes take 90 seconds.

Lately I have been fantisising about escaping on this bike, perhaps on a cycling tour of France.  I have also recently developed a slight mania for attempting to learn the French language.

Is this a woman's bike?  I am not sure.  I found the pedals too narrow for my fairly average feet, so I will replace them, fortunately the pedal threads are the usual size, not any peculiar French thread, though I believe the crank axle is something unusual, it seems a bit narrower, ie feet closer together than usual.

Some men like dressing up in women's clothes, maybe I like women's bicycles...

I once had a Japansese shopping bike with a skirt guard and basket at the front, that was OK too...

I'm not a poofter in case you are wondering...

Black and french racing blue seem to go together well.  I like the colour scheme below:

My career has been a bit of a disaster, I have wasted a lot of time applying for jobs, so why not spend some time on this blog???