Some people have entirely too much spare time...
Me, I am just keeping busy being busy.
Spent a bit of time on Tuesday swapping out my rear wheel and brakes. Always the bargain shopper I managed to score a complete saint rear wheel for $36. How could I say no?
The only down side of the older Saint hubs is that you are stuck with either a 6in or an 8in rotor. I chose a 6in in attempt to get a bit more ground/rock clearance. I nicked my 7in rotor a few weeks ago pretty bad and bent it. So in order to maintain the power of the larger rotor I opted to use a 4 piston brake caliper.
That little purchase did catch Erin's attention. Not supposed to be spending a bunch of money on bikes. Doh! At any rate, Jenson was blowing them out for about 20% off so it wasn't too bad price wise. I thought about swapping just the caliper, but for $20 more they threw in a rotor, frame mount, and the lever/hose. Overall the Code caliper lives up to expectation. Even though I am running a smaller rotor it is right even on the power. Surprising since it is an organic pad. This thing is probably too strong to run with a sintered metalic pad. If I get bored I may try that out for S&G, but it doesn't appear necessary.
Riding?
Yep, here and there. I got a couple rides in this week. Monday was an arsenal loop. I reported about it in my last post, so I won't blabber any more about it here.
Yesterday was a scheduled group ride with the SORBA club, but mid-day rain and thunderstorms scared off most everyone. I rang up Clay and we decided that we would have a go at riding Monte Sano anyways. The rains had lasted about an hour and it had been clear for about 4 hours when we hit the trails. It was mostly dry, but it was very humid. The rocks and roots were just slick as they get. I ended up being the pinball in the rocks. As luck would have it I was anticipating an end to all this rain and I mounted my dry season tires. These have a hard compound and tighter spacing on the knobs (specialized fast track rear, wtb mutano front). Yep, I dumped the bike after about 3 miles into the ride on an off camber rutted section with roots. The back end slipped out, putting me off course, the front wheel tracked right into a root and slid it right off the trail, me in tow of course. I laughed as I pulled myself from the poison oak/ivy and righted my bike. The ride was filled with lots of spun tires, slips, bad bounces, and general good fun. All you can do when conditions are like that is to have good humor and enjoy the challenge. So another Monte Sano ride restricted to the upper trails by wet trail conditions. One of these days summer will get here and dry the place out.
Mowing the lawn?
You know it. Had a good bout of lawn mowing action on Monday evening. Mowed the lawn and did the trim work with the weed wacker. Good times.
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