Today I decided not to ride my bike in since it was supposed to rain. That turned out to be an excellent idea. I had to head to the LBS to get some new bar tape (don’t ever get a bike that needs white bar tape since you constantly have to replace it) and when I walked in, it wasn’t raining at all. When I walked out about 3-5 minutes later, it was absolutely pouring. I got completely soaked on the 50 yard walk to my car. I’m really glad I wasn’t on a bike.
Last night’s commute back home actually went rather well. I figured it’d be pretty bad since about half of the trip home was a long slow uphill road. It turns out that I managed to find a nice pace and be able to keep with it the whole way up. Of course, as I was going home, my bike was making all sorts of nasty noises, so I knew that I had to make some derailleur adjustments. As soon as I walked in the door, I put my bike on the trainer, which has become my bike workstation. Apparently my fall the other day really messed things up with my front derailleur. It was crooked, so there was no straight path through where the chain didn’t rub. I adjusted that and then noticed some noise still coming from the RD. I took that off and completely disassembled and cleaned it. Now it’s quiet as can be. 
Interesting note, one pulley in the RD has ceramic bearings and the other has steel bearing. I found that neat.
