What’s better than riding a Rivendell on a Tuesday while normal people are working?

Coming home and finding a UPS truck on your street containing…another Rivendell!

Specifically a Platypus:

Yesterday I received various parts, but today the frame came, which is obviously the big ticket item. I got to work immediately, and so far I’ve more or less completed the “bolting stuff on” phase. Next will come the “running cables” and “cutting the chain” phase, followed by the “riding around while adjusting stuff” phase. As for a timeline, I’m trying not to hold myself to one–not only am I a lousy bike mechanic, but I’m also extremely impatient, which is a bad combination. In fact I’m probably a lousy mechanic because I’m impatient, which might suggest that I should curb my impatience by drinking while I work. Sure, perhaps if I were more relaxed I’d do a better job, but given my incompetence it’s more likely I’d do a worse one, and in the end I’d fall short of my usual “shoddy” and wind up at “Target,” backwards fork and all:

Anyway, I’ll share more details once the bike’s rideable (though with me in charge rideability is far from assured), but in the meantime here’s the platypus propaganda that came with the frame:

Not sure what that round thing is, but I’m guessing it’s a spoke protector.