Rain Date

Saturday was rained out.  No Grumble in the Grundle, no Elvis Ride.  I woke up and decided to get shit done.  First on the list, fix my beloved but broken fan.

I had a zero dollar plan.  I've held onto a Race Face OG X-Type crank for years waiting for this moment.  All I had to do was mount it on top using science.

I found an old four bolt granny for a template for my holes.

I even used the triangle thing I found in the street to make it all square.  Using a drill bit that was probably intended for wood, and now rendered useless for anything, I made my holes... without ever checking the bolt pattern against the crank.

Of course it was wrong.

I broke out my round file.

Then I broke my round file.

And then I remembered that I have a Dremel type tool, but only then.  After much more time than it shoulda taken and unfortunately at the expense of my file, I had my new fan handle.

Q-factor optimized for my dwarf-sized hand.

So much (limited) success. I decided to press on with other pointless things.

I mounted the 2.5 Maxxis prototype tire I "tested" some time ago to see how the profile would look on the Industry Nine Enduro™ rim.  I'm thinking ahead to the Trans-Sylvania Epic and the Enduro™ day which has managed to rip a hole in my front tire twice.  Three flats in four years of the race, and two of them on 2.35-2.4 FRONT tires on Enduro™ day.  That's gotta change, regardless of weight.

It looks formidable.  It's also on backwards.  Meh.

Feeling good about myself, I ran out, got my mom's groceries, delivered them, and came home in a rain storm.  I walked into my bike room, flipped on the lights, and they went right back off.  The power went out in my neighborhood.
What could I do by sunlight?

Purge the air in the front XTR brake that was on the Meat Carver, soon to be on the Vertigo.

How could I fuck that up?

Let's see.

Put the Shimano cup in the lever, try to pour straight outta the (new)1000ml container, spill it on the carpet, decide to transfer some into the 50ml container for easier pouring, do that over the sink, set down the (new)1000ml container in the sink while I do my business, get 'er done, go back to sink to clean up...

Forget that the (new)1000ml container is sitting in the sink with its lid off, get water in the (new)1000ml container.

Spend the next half hour coming up with a science experiment to separate the mineral oil from the water.

Even though I know it's a stupid order to do it in, I went ahead and set up the front end of the Vertigo, but not before I discovered this:

Seriously, where do these aluminum-backed sintered brake pads keep coming from?  I thought the front brake felt strange on the Meat Carver the last few months I had it.

I swear someone is coming to my house late at night and swapping my $30 metallic pads for their lesser expensive and inferior (IMHO) counterpart.

Done ruining my own things for the day, I put on my rain gear, headed to The Spoke Easy and tried to help them get rid of the hundreds of leftover PBR's from the canceled Elvis ride... while being serenaded by Renelvis.

Oh yeah, PMBAR registration starts TOMORROW!!