Weekend endeavours

The thought came to me that while I might post a lot at the start, things should be winding down as I get caught up with things.
Today's items are a chicken tractor and a Univega Gran Turismo bike that I am building up.
First the tractor. There are a lot of feral chickens in Cayman. Around the house, on the streets and even at the cruise ship landings. They are searching for food and scratching anywhere they can. every now and then, you will see a mother with 6,8 or even 10 baby chicks following her - newborns. But over a week or two, that number will drop to just a couple. Whether the young'uns are killed by cats and dogs or die from starvation, I do not know.
In doing some research on the web, I can across something called a chicken tractor. It is a movable "chicken coop" that houses chickens and allows then a place to eat, sleep and lay their eggs. Of course, you can now get the eggs as you know where they are! The benefits are free range eggs and even a chicken or two for meat if wanted. It gives you someplace to dispose of you kitchen scraps and you get to play chicken farmer. Almost a win / win situation. The downside is you have to take care of them (they are no longer wandering about) and the tractor should be moved every day - a 30 second job as it is on wheels. Many different plans are available on the net and the building cost was about $100 Cayman for the materials. The hard part is catching the chickens as they run away when you get withing 20 or 30' of them. I'll need to build a trap.

The second item is the bike - it is a buildup I will be modifying over time. The bike is of 1985 vintage and not the oldest one in my collection. It will be built for comfortable and hopefully effortless riding. You see, I have this dream to ride in the Paris-Brest-Paris 1200km randonneur in 2011 in less than the maximum allotted time of 90 hours (occurs every 4 years). So I need a nice bike to get riding mileage in. I have read that the finishers usually ride about 10K miles the year before they undertake the challenge. The requirements are to successfully complete 200km in under 13hrs, 300km in 27hrs, 400km in 27hrs, 600km in 40hrs and an optional 1,000 in 75 hrs. The shorter ones are sanctioned rides put on by various clubs around the world. Successful completion of the shorter distances qualifies on try the longer ones and finally to undertake PBP. There are other 1200km rides held in various places in the USA like Colorado and Washington and overseas in Bulgaria and Australia to name a few. So, I will build the bike and then plan on some form of training schedule.