The damage was irreparable. Unless I was willing to endure sharp nails in a very sensitive part of my anatomy as well as tear my bicycle shorts to shreds, it meant that I couldn't ride my bicycle at all until I had a new bicycle seat.
So I set off for my neighboring Jumbo DIY store, because in addition to all sorts of DIY items, it stocks bicycles and cycling gear at reasonable prices - reasonable for Switzerland, that is. The prices would most likely seem hair-raising elsewhere.
Sure enough, I was able to find a new bicycle seat. In the 20 years since I've last been in the market for one, I didn't realize what changes had occurred. There are now specialized seats for women, as well as men, children and adolescents - racing seats, mountain bike seats, seats with gel padding (always nice to have extra, IMO), etc. The choices were enough to make my head spin. But I finally settled on a reasonably-priced women's 20 per cent gel seat that will serve for my everyday riding needs. Arriving home with my new seat, however, I realized that I had absolutely no idea how to remove the old one and attach the new one.
I described my dilemma to HWMBO later on during one of our Skype conversations. Usually, in such a situation, I would merely ask him to do it for me. But since he is 3,000+ miles away right now, I needed to go to Plan B. As always, he provided me with a suggestion by googling "how to change a bike seat" - with this result. Unfortunately, this description was sparse, to say the least. It was also not helpful because it instructed me to look for a nut and a bolt and to use a wrench. Try as I might, I could find no evidence of a nut or bolt or anything for which a wrench would be appropriate. On the same website, however, I found a much more helpful set of instructions, complete with video, under "How to Install a Bicycle Seat."
But now, the problem was that I needed a special tool. I sifted through the many tools in HWMBO's trusty tool bucket. The most promising were some of the special "keys" (Friend J calls them "Allen keys") that I have in various sizes courtesy of my many IKEA purchases. As things turned out, however, none of the sizes that I had worked. This meant another trip to Jumbo.
Once at Jumbo, I asked for help - reasonably it seemed to me - from the young man in charge of bicycles. He determined that I was not worthy of his attention once he ascertained that a) I didn't want to purchase a new bicycle or b) I was not interested in having my bicycle repaired at a cost of CHF 70 per hour. And yes, you read that figure correctly! He merely waved me back to the tool department, saying something about a "machin 6" (roughly "thing-a-ma-jig 6") that should solve my problem. So I hied myself to the tool department where I was quite simply and thoroughly lost before a seemingly endless wall of tools. Fortunately, there was a gentleman there who looked very much as if he knew what was what. So I explained my predicament to him. He kindly pondered the situation, then chose a tool that I never would have selected in a million years. He even walked back to the bicycle department to show me how to use it.
I have no idea what the "machin's" real name is. Even the description on its tag (clef = key) hasn't enlightened me. But it was quite reasonably-priced. Best of all, it did the trick perfectly. I had a very comfortable ride yesterday. And I look forward to many more!
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