Sometimes shortcuts lead the wrong way

Last night I started to work on shortening the hydro lines on my Strokers. The last time I went through the process of disassembling the line, trimming it to length, reinstalling it with a new olive, and fully bleeding a Strokers brake system was the summer of 2008. Last night I relied on my memory, and I went into the job with very little time or patience. The end result was a catastrophic failure, and I found myself laying in bed last night with images of olives, razor blades, O-rings, and plastic syringes bouncing off the inner walls of my skull as I tried to fall asleep. I woke up at 4:55am this morning and decided to take another crack at it.

After I did one more stupid thing (uninstalled the line and removed the olive to add O-rings to the line to keep it from abrading the frame) I reinstalled the olive before I put the compression nut and rubber nose cone back on... fail. I went out, got some coffee (pre-work mechanics can not be mixed with beer no matter how tempting it may be), and sat down and watched the video I haven't watched in over 18 months.



Oh yeah, that's how you do it. My brain was still set on Hayes Mags and had never fully assimilated the Stroker methodology. I missed the boat on a few steps, but one more attempt was all I needed to complete the job.

I knew all this would happen. Over the holidays I had so much free time to build a bike it was insane, yet I had no bike to work on. Then as parts trickle in I can only squeeze in a half hour here and fifteen minutes there, and that's just not the way I like to do it. Ahhhhh... to spend a lazy evening assembling a bike with clean parts that are laid out in advance as I sip on a cold beverage and work solemnly in my uncrowded and uncluttered work space.

I now have a bleed that borders on delightful, but I still have the front brake to do. Maybe I'll have fifteen minutes tonight...

Let me just say that entries are very lacking for Monday's Awesome Strap contest, so I'm gonna change the rules. Send me a photo of anything either Awesome Strapped, taped, zip-tied, bungee corded, affixed with chewing gum, or any other manner of attachment to your bike for a chance to win an Awesome Strap prize pack. "Pack" you say? I do say. My new box of 2010 Backcountry Research goodies was not left at my house yesterday because the mailman wanted to leave me the little orange card instead. The Pie has offered to go to the US Post Office and pick it up today as my proxy and fully legal representative. I have no idea what's in the box, but I assure you that the winner will get more than one Awesome Strap for his/her efforts. I will be accepting entries until Sunday night, so send your digital imagery to teamdicky at hotmail dot com. The only way to win is to play.

Impress me.