“Re: Where do I begin?”

On 6/10/2003, steve davis said:

>Well, it was nice to see you again and I did enjoy riding with
>you for the first 20 miles anyway.

Ditto!

>After that, things went down hill fast (pardon the pun).

Downhill fast, with no slowing down.

>It seemed that things began to fall apart at the first SAG stop. 
>I couldn't imagine where you were when we started up again.  I
>felt so bad when I saw your road rash after you finally caught up.

That was no big deal. It never did hurt, even a little bit. Just another tatt. ;-)

>You may very well have had something caught in your cleats that
>prevented an easy release from the pedals, but you may find it
>was the way you tried to get out of the pedals that is the
>culprit.  Campy cleats are designed not to release during hard
>sprinting efforts (a sometimes serious problem for racers).

[SNIP]

Actually, I've ridden with these shoes and pedals so many times now that I'm quite comfortable with how to get in and out. I know how to twist my ankle out (toe in) to pop the cleats out of the pedals. I didn't have any problems with them Saturday morning when I rode up from the car to sign in, and everything was fine Monday and yesterday on my training rides.

Maybe the rain affected it somehow, or something was stuck in there, but it was very difficult to get them to pop out.

>Regarding your brakes:  I had no idea that you had zero stopping
>power.  When you road up to me and applied your brakes, I thought
>you were only pressing one of the brake levers.  When I took your
>faulty pad with me to find a spare nut someplace, I thought I was
>doing you a favor.

Actually, you were doing me a favor. The only problem with you taking that brake pad was that it took away the illusion of brakes... there was no rubbing sound at all.

It's not like you took the pad without asking me first. If I'd thought it was doing me any good at all, I wouldn't have let you take it. Believe me.

>I have heard of some terrible crashes caused by tire blowouts
>when a brake pad rubs against the sidewall and not the rim.

Yeah, you mentioned that on Saturday. Another good reason for it to be taken off.

>Even after we discovered the missing nut, I still thought your
>back brakes worked fine.

Actually, I'm told that I have a permanent problem with my back brakes. My shifters/brake-levers are designed for a different kind of brakes, and the only way to get them to work really well is to replace the whole mechanism (either the shifters, or the brake assembly).

Both Rose City Cycle and Mystic Cycle have told me that, so I believe it.

(On the other hand, these new brake shoes are a vast improvement.)

>Believe me, I wouldn't have let you ride your bike had I known
>you couldn't stop.

Well... it wasn't really up to anybody but me. I knew the risks.

>When I finally got to the Petersham Country Store, I went inside
>and opened a dozen or more packages of hardware looking for a nut
>that would fit your post.

[SNIP]

I appreciate how hard you tried to help... and you did, after all, get the front brakes working better than they had for most of the day by swapping up one of the pads from the back.

>When you got to Petersham, I was freezing and literally
>shivering. That's why I was in such a hurry to get going again. 
>I hope you didn't think I was blowing you off. I wasn't tired of
>stopping, I just need to get warm.  After reading your report,
>I'm feeling a bit guilty, but not as guilty as I would have felt
>had you crashed as a result of my poor brake job.  I'm glad you
>are safe and sound.

You and Boyko both shiver a lot. I don't remember seeing anybody shiver like he did, but I believe you that you were cold.

I don't blame you for taking off. I wasn't cold, but I definitely wanted to get the ride over with.

The only problem with your "brake job" was that the cable was a little too loose, which is why I had to reach down and apply the extra pressure with my right hand. (That worked better than I would have expected.)

Steve, don't feel guilty. Nothing I said was about you doing anything wrong, it was "just the facts, maam."

>Next time, lets hope for better weather.

Definitely. At least it wasn't windy or snowing!

>And finally, if it makes you feel any better, I rode in a worse
>century once.  It was the Mt. Greylock Century in October of
>2001.  Similar circumstances whith the rain starting at about
>mile 20.  Only difference was that it was snowing at the top of
>Mt. Greylock.  That was cold and miserable.
>
>Glad I don't ride for a living.

I actually wouldn't mind riding for a living, if they had a pro circuit for giants. Then I'd have much better gear, and a paid mechanic to fix the stuff I break. :-)

>I'll look forward to our next ride.

Me too! Will it be the PMC, or Temple Mountain?

Seth