two weeks of weak brakes

I'm starting to get used to the idea of having brakes that only kinda work on my cross bike. I probably should look more into how to tune the TRPs, but that's no fun. I did put some new kool-stop salmon pads on to replace the stock pads that picked up about 75 slivers of rock at the dirt crit. We'll see if those hook up any better.

Dirt Crit-good times. I got a crappy start to pair with my crappy warm up. Settled into fourth place after the first lap mayhem (especially the creek crossing). Being one of the few on the cross bike, my lines and technique was a bit different from the mtb riders. I was solo for a while, and disheartened by the fact that Thrower was up ahead of me kickin' my ass on a single speed. Got caught by Fuhrman and Bierman after a bad lap and let myself follow Dan's wheel. After banging my rim on a root and not being able to take Dan's lines, I realized I'd be better off on my own and surged on the grassy uphill, separating myself for the rest of the race and coming in for third. Bob Arnold flatted out of the race for second, which I didn't know about 'til later.

After the race I wanted to get out of my wet shoes and kit, only to find my car keys staring at me from behind my locked doors. And I had just told the story the night before of how I had broken a window on my old Caprice Classic (bought the car for $100 and spray painted some bitchin' flames on the hood of that beast) on a cold Thanksgiving night a few years back on the landing because I had neglected to bring my keys in to the show with me. I think it was to go see NIL8 (Jeff Williams' band). So there my keys were, just looking at me from the comfort of my front seat. I borrowed a cell phone to make the call and was able to get the keys before the start of the PF race. In the meantime I occupied myself with free sausages and energy drinks courtesy of Pfoodman. The beer looked enticing, but I decided to wait a while for that. Probably should've started drinking then instead.

I paired up with Travis Thrower for the PF race. We were all set to beat up on Chris Ploch and Carrie Cash and pick up $100 for our efforts. Travis would battle Chris on lap one, and then I would establish a gap on the ensuing laps that we would easily maintain/build on. That was a great plan until "Chain" Thrower dropped his chain 50 meters after the start. He was able to get it back on and get going for at least another 5 meters before it came off again. Hooray eccentric bottom brackets! When he finally came through after lap one I had a lot of traffic to navigate through, but everybody was very friendly and I was able to cleanly make every pass I needed to do. We got as close to second place as about 20 seconds, but then Travis had more mechanical issues and we ended the race more mid-pack. It was a great time though, and I hope they do something like this again next year. Now it's a weekend away camping (hopefully I can stay away from the ER this time) and back to Bubba cross next weekend.