Cecil and I rode over from her house. KRhea's (Prez) comment: "If anyone was going to be here, it would be you two!" Reputation? Yes, we have a rep for riding in just about anything.
We waited for Doug Rennie to show, but he never did. There were some club members inside Madison's eating breakfast. They stayed there.
Off into the deluge, north on the Esplanade, over the Steel Bridge, then north on Front Ave, which is notable for the number of train tracks to cross. Jim "Hercules" M got a flat; KRhea fixed it in record time. Then off again, meeting the bulk of the group heading back.
West on Kittredge, south on St Helens (headwind), then, just as I thought we'd be climbing Wardway, we instead turned just before, did a little cut-though path, and found ourselves on Upshur. Kept heading south, eventually to cross Burnside and climb Stearns Way. Dan did himself really proud on his fixie.
I was starting to worry, as I had noticed when coming down the other side of Kittredge, that my brakes were pretty much non-existent. And here we were heading up into Washington Park, which meant we had to go down. Sure enough, practically no braking at all on the downside. So much so that I finally managed to pull over and stop for a bit. Jim M was having similar issues (he at least had a front brake, but wasn't looking forward to JUST a front brake descending Park). We coasted down to Park, then walked all the way down to Lincoln HS, where it leveled out. Then down to the river, over the Hawthorne Bridge, and back to Madison's.
No Cecil - the group had splintered enough that she was between them and us, and thought we had passed her. So she went off for more miles.
Steve had a nice brunch waiting for us at Madison's, with lots of hot coffee. I sat at the unemployed end of the table and we all commiserated.
Then a quick pedal back to Cecil's, and home, to a hot shower, and some quality time with Bleriot, replacing the brake pads.
3 comments:
The one brake pad on the far right and the second from the left are pretty far gone. About how many miles/months?
Um, yeah. Nice brake pad there. Youch.
I honestly don't know. I keep maintenance records on the bikes; started Bleriot's at 2500 miles. No new brake pads recorded, and it is at 6200+ now... Probably just over a year.
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