We're essential

Bike shops made the list of essential businesses when New Hampshire's governor imposed a stay-at-home order yesterday.

Work trickles in. We're not letting people into the shop, although we might relax that in specific cases. Just don't be offended if we follow you around with a can of disinfectant spray and hose everything down right after you touch it. And if you cough or sneeze in the store, expect to leave in a body bag.

Only kidding. We would have to touch your body to stuff it. We'll just envelop you in a choking fog of Lysol as we whip you toward the exit.

El Queso Grande is working overtime, which for him is working as much as he usually does, to make more of our inventory visible for online browsing. You will still have to pay over the phone and pick up the items outside the shop. He's also looking into connecting to Quality Bicycle Products for their program that allows you to shop their inventory as long as you pay through a retailer. That would be us. In that case, your selections would arrive at your door thanks to the efforts of our friends in the shipping companies, who are keeping what's left of the economy moving from provider to consumer.

The weather continues to tease with alternating days of sunshine and sort of mild temperatures giving way to treats like Monday's seven inches of snow. The early spring sunshine has scorched all of that away, leaving only the tenacious remnants of the winter's feeble snowpack, but it certainly made for a day or two of inferior riding conditions. More common is the "wintry mix" that might bring an inch of wet snow and sleet along with hypothermia-inducing cold rain. That seems to come along about every three days. I have yet to launch the commute, partly because of my lackluster preparations and partly because I still need to be the designated errand runner while the cellist waits for clearance to put weight on her recently fractured leg. She's also working from home, teaching her students via internet during the school shutdown, while I venture out at least four days a week to my now-essential contribution to society.