MY HEALTH IN THE UNSTEADY HANDS OF MY FRIENDS. The welding may have worked. I had broken the frame of my bicycle... not just any bicycle, but Louise, the bike that has carried me to Nova Scotia and back. It must have 5,000 hard-earned miles on it and for a good many of those miles my 250lb+ frame was carrying bags or a trailer or camping gear... unreal. That should be a new unofficial mantra for those who love steel bicycles, Steel is UNreal. Anyway, the broken favorite bike is also my main source of transportation so it either needed to get fixed or replaced because the Orange Crush was not treating my commute well. 2.5" looow-pressure off-road tires don't make it easy to get anywhere. To prove it, simply ask the knucklhead in the Hummer with the 32" tall tires how good his gas mileage is. Anyway, the broken favorite bike (intentional repetition) was far too expensive to replace with a comparable steel frame, so I decided to try a welding mission. Louise Resurrected was, to this point 6 hours and 3 miles later, a success. If I have a broken face when you see me next the welding mission's failure might explain it. Although it could have been that I asked a Hummer owner to quote gas mileage stats to me in traffic. See you on the next mission?