This is obviously not my week for speedy finishes
I changed the front brake pads on the mlcm last night, and apparently jostled the brake so it rubbed against the front wheel and jostled the rear fender so it rubbed against the rear wheel. So when I headed out this morning to do a loop of the Estacada 100 (to make up for not doing it on Wednesday because the mlcm’s front tire went flat after Tuesday’s run up to Sauvie Island) they held me back for the first 13 miles of the loop (I was running up the Springwater Trail, but moving very very slowly and was down to about 12mph before I decided to stop and look for dragging brake shoes and the like.)
It took me 35 minutes to realign everything so it wouldn’t rub, and, alas, I managed to munge my front rack in the process (it ended up cocked off to one side about 30° – I pushed it back into line, but I’m afraid the fork tang may not be long for this world.) so that pretty much guaranteed a relaxed loop time.
But, on the bright side, once I finished the repair and went out into darkest Clackistan, the clouds obligingly rolled back and I rolled out to Estacada and back to Carver under sunny skies (it clouded up between Carver and Oregon City, then started to rain as I crossed Portland city limits.
I have decided that the first frame I make is going to be a porteur/randonneur frame (dunno what I’m going to do for the fork, since the failure case for a fork involves high-speed face plants; I’d probably be better off bothering some of my framebuilder friends to make me one or two) with room for 45mm tires and fenders (not that I’d use 45mm tires, but I want room for 45 or 50mm fenders so they’ll have a lot of breathing room around my 28mm Nomads) and with canti studs so I can put v-brakes onto the thing (Paul Racers are an appealing alternative, but they are very expensive and I suspect the front one would have the same sort of squeal problem that cantilever brakes have) because I am getting very tired of caliper brakes squeezing my front fender off to the side.
No pictures today, sorry; I forgot to bring a camera and only had the iphone, which was too busy pumping anti-depressant music into my ears to be used as a camera instead. But the vital statistics are 10,626 miles and 10,362 RUSA km for the year, plus my weight has, for the first time in over a quarter century, dropped under 170 pounds (juuuuust barely under, but it still counts. A target weight of 165 is now seeming feasible, and then maybe I’ll be able to consider maintaining a 10mph average speed going up Mount Hood next summer/fall.)
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If you’re going to make the frame, why not go with disc?
Better stopping in the rain, less rim wear, and while you do often have to fight with the fender struts to mount around the brake, once you’re done it stays done.