So maybe it’s not all her fault. She was, after all, dismembered, packed in a suitcase, abused by baggage handlers, and reassembled in a hotel room without all of the proper tools.

Still, one can’t help but be annoyed by some of her “structural” idiosyncrasies.

The day started with maladjusted brakes. But I did not have the tool necessary to correct the problem. So I went to the kind and generous people at The Bike Institute. They performed a quick adjustment and I was on my way.

15 minutes later, I detected a wobble in a pedal. It had come loose, then rethreaded itself – but it mis-threaded. I found Think Bike. They managed to rethread it properly, thus saving my crank – literally and figuratively.

So back to the relationship. It was a day of climbing. Through the Wicklow Mountains. Not big by US standards, but the climbs were sometimes quite steep and very long. Frida doesn’t really have the low gear for this, so it was a struggle.

Then, for the downhill on the other side, I found Frida to be a bit twitchy. As it had started to rain, and the roads were slick and windy, and Frida was a bit twitchy, I had to go slow on the descents. No payoff for the toil of the climb.

So now warm and comfy in the Glendalough hostel. A hearty meal of Irish stew to fortify. Off to do some maintenance on the girl. Maybe I will grow to love her, but there needs to be some changes in behavior.