While I’ve had a lot of janky bike moments on the trail in the past (“oh you appear to be missing two of your chain ring bolts”), I’ve never actually been forced to turn around because of them. Well, there’s a first time for everything.
The weather didn’t look pretty Saturday morning, but dammit I wanted to get on my mountain bike. Plus my riding buddy had a virginal mountain bike, and there’s just no resisting getting that muddy. As I gathered up my gear, I realized that my extra 26r tube was in my car… which was in the shop. Fab. I pretty much have every other sized tube in the universe, but no 26″ one, and it’s 9am, no bike shop is open till 10. We try Fred Meyer, realizing once we were there that there is no way in hell they would sell a tube with a presta valve. He thinks he has one at his apartment, we drive there; nope, a schrader valve. (we both run tubeless, so a patch kit would not help)
So by this time it’s around 9:30am, and I find that Sunset Cycles on 26 is open, and since we’re headed to Wilson River Trail, it’s on the way. Yay! Gleefully, tube in hand, we make our way out to Wilson River. And glory be, the trail is DRY and wonderful and it’s not raining and there’s no one around!
And a mile or so into the trail my rear brake starts making the most godawful scraping/screeching sound known to mankind.
We stop. Adjust. Assess. End up pulling the pads out after I try adjusting every screw on the bike, to see that the metal piston thingy is missing some parts. And the pads are…mostly non-existent. We put the thing back together (sort of), and we sadly (and very quickly without brake use!) make our way back to the car. “Bar” comes up, but dammit no, we will ride!
So, tail tucked between my legs, I end up at Fat Tire Farm, holding my bike out saying “um…there appears to be… a problem with the rear brakes…” Which is quickly diagnosed as my complete lack of bike maintenance/skills/knowledge (he was very gracious about it, thankfully). Shiny new brake pads in place, we drag our bikes up to Forest Park, where we get completely head to toe coated in mud. Thank you Leif Erikson.
Sunday, I opted for the Sunday team ride. Overall, weather is good, company great, and I got in 60 miles. Unfortunately, the curse of Lacamas Lake descended upon us; I spent 4 hours riding and 1 hour waiting around for 5 flats to be fixed; me and another teammate took a different route back than the rest of the team, and just from I5 to PACE they got another 2. Un-fucking-believable. But, given that I wasn’t freezing to death, it wasn’t all bad, and frankly my quads felt like lead, as they usually do the first month back to them mountain bike. I forget about those fast power efforts, which are SO different from road riding.
My plan is to mountain bike one day per weekend and road ride the other day, all depending on the weather which day goes where. Also I would like to somehow jam some more snowboarding in there; might have to shift one of these activities to Thursday or Friday.
Can’t…wait…for…summer…!!!
