My weekend

It was full of good plans...but not all of them worked out. We were supposed to finish building Eddie's Jabberwocky on Friday, but after 8 hours (not joking here) of trying to bleed the brakes we gave up and went to drink beer. We got up on Saturday and began working on the brakes again, and fit the bike for Eddie. The rear brake was just not holding so we decided to scrap our plans for Chilhowee (it was already noon anyway) and head to Addictive Cycles to let the brake master work his magic. Hodge couldn't "fix" it even after working on it for an hour...several problems with the lever, leaking, who knows. He put on a Magura lever (which we found out weighs 1/2 of the Avid lever!) and we were in business. However, we only had 2 hours or so to ride...at Fort Yargo...not what I had in mind, but it was riding none the less.

Sunday was better. We got up early and headed up for some Fools Gold route action with our friends Chris and Rich. Not 3 minutes into the ride, though, Eddie stood up to clear a steep section of doubletrack and his headset fell apart. He was back on his 26er bike because the rear brake from Saturday's problems never held. Sounds like we need a new rear brake altogether. When he tried to tighten it, he broke the stem....great. We rolled back to the car in hopes that Chris had some extra Aerus parts in his truck, but no luck. After hemming and hawing about whether to ride with the risk of Eddie snapping his sternum in 1/2 on his stem or turning home, we decided to keep riding only because Eddie promised to ride smart and hike when necessary. We got in almost 3 hours with Chris and Rich, and then Eddie and I rode some more horse trails for 1-2 hours. The Jake mountain trails were in great shape...dry...and STEEP AS EVER! Eddie came out with no crashes so we were both very relieved that the stem held out. Don't try this at home!

I have a few pix I will upload soon.....hope everyone is enjoying Fall!! :-)