smells like off season

Not much to report on the riding front today.  Last night was a commute home on the dos hitting just enough trail to keep my sanity and I also started putting the cx stuff onto the Van Dessel.  The rear brakes went on fine but the front are being a bitch.  The brake posts are removable and the little doo-dad that applies spring tension to the brakes isn’t firmly attached and allows the new brakes to move.  Somehow the old brakes worked but the new ones don’t.  Dammit.  After about an hour of f’ing around with the front last night I decided to throw in the towel and hit it another night when I’m less tired.  My guess is that when I try it tonight it’ll work easy as pie.  If there is one thing I’ve learned since starting to wrench on my own bikes is that if something is frustrating me its best to step away and come back another time and it’ll probably work just fine.  It usually does work so I’m hoping that tonight will give me better results.  Wish me luck.

Oh yeah, my heart rate monitor shit the bed this weekend too.  Seems like everything is going to hell all at once here so not only do I not have use of my road and cx bikes but no heart rate monitor either.  Sweet.  That should make this winters trainer sessions super duper fun.  I have a hard enough time keeping the tempo up on those even with real h.r. numbers staring me in the face so when I can only go by perceived heart rate I’m sure the efforts will really suffer.  Woe is me.

9-27-06 Edit: I managed to get the rear brakes set up on the Van D. last night.  Yippee!!!  Ever since I started wrenching for myself I’ve found out that even though it takes me longer to do than at a shop, I know that when it’s done, it’ll be done kinda sorta right.  Actually, I’m giving myself too much credit here.  Let’s try this again.  When I wrench for myself I figure I have a 50/50 chance that it’ll work properly.  Canti brakes are one thing I should be able to handle though.  I think.