Daylight Slaving Time

It was a busy week in Platteville. The normal 9 hour days were added to by a 12 hour day which included an overnight in a hotel room for a 6 am start the next day. The boss was buying so we stayed and went to dinner and drinks. He'd gone to UW-P from 86-90 so he knew all the drinking spots. We visited Uno's which is owned by a buddy of his. 4 free beers and half of a massive Long Island Ice Tea had me ready to quit for the evening. I wasn't alone as my 2 coworkers and the boss were done too. The worst part of it was the lack of good coffee the following morning. I'm sure Platteville has some somewhere, I didn't have time to find any. Getting back too late Monday night for the Z4F session was not the best way to start the week either.

Yesterday I swapped my brakes on the Ferrous. Jenson USA had Shimano LX (M585) hydraulic brakes for a silly low price of $109 for a set of front and rear. Set up and bleeding was easy. Except for a brain fart on my part. I've been running my brakes moto-style since forever. While adding the mineral oil to the right hand lever on my bars I kept looking at the rear caliper for signs of oil. When the lever firmed up I looked at the caliper and the pistons weren't moving. There wasn't any oil coming from the bleeder nipple either. I scratched my head and thought "WTF?" I checked the hose at the lever and at the caliper and found no leaks. I gave up and called Jenson's 800 number and got a service tech. He had me check a few things and he thought that possibly I had pushed some of the interior line in the way of the brass ferrule when I installed the ferrule. I took it apart and gently slid a needle into the ferrule but found no obstruction. I checked the other ferrule and found it unobstructed as well. "WTF?" I said aloud. the service tech was mistified as well. That was when I saw my front brake giggling at me. "Fer cryin' out loud" I said aloud, "I forgot I run the brakes moto-style. I've been priming the front brake this whole time. Sorry I'm an idiot." The service tech chuckled and said "no problem. At least you're set."

So today I rolled out of the driveway and went off to Quarry Ridge to ride loops. I got to the trails from the paved trail and entered at roughly the half-way of the lap. As I came back to the parking lot entrance of the trail I grabbed two handfulls of my new brakes as I crested the rise...



It's hard to see but the water is 2-3 feet deep shortly after the trail drops off. It looked as though there was an effort to pump the water somewhere as there was two 3 inch hoses which may have a sump pump attached on the other end. I didn't bother to chedk, I just started doing laps. After 5 laps I was bored so I headed home. I took a longer route through campus and up State Street. In all I got a solid 3 + hours of saddle time.

I see that Jesse has been following my lead by adding gears to his Superfly to get it ready for IceMan. He's either going to ride it or have it as a smoke screen, although I don't see why he would waste effort on that pursuit. I think he'll ride it, he'll just have to remember to use the shifters.

I think he'll win too.