Weekend in Review

Housework Saturday morning, then some mountain bike riding at Lambert Park at 4 pm. We took our neighbor, Matt, with us. He's been riding more this year and we've tried to get together with him for a ride. We did Jolene's standard route: Rodeo, River, Poppy, Ziggy, High Bench, Spring, Upper Rodeo, Rodeo (one more time!) then Rodeo Up. I think Matt had a good time. I mostly rode mellow, but poured on a bit more gas up Poppy and even more up Spring. Just some nice riding.

Day Saving Time (DST) should be abandoned. The original ideas behind it's inception make some sense, but these days most of those ideas don't hold up. I wish Utah would drop DST like Arizona. We can keep the two dates for going on and off DST, but just go to work an hour earlier in the Spring instead of changing the clocks. Changing clocks is a pain and so un-modern.

I knew the rear brake on my mountain bike needed attention from the White Rim trip. I tried to install some new pads before the ride on Saturday, but ran out of time and put the old ones back on. Today I got it fixed. The pads were worn out, but the outboard piston was not retracting far enough to allow the new pads to fit. I tried prying it back, but it was jammed. So I took the whole caliper off and by working from the other side got the piston retracted and the new pads installed. Now if I could just get the front brake to stop squealing. Todd said he's had KoolStop pads do this so I may need to try a set of Shimano pads.

This evening I decided to go for my first night ride. I rigged up the high-powered halogen head lamp and rode from my house headed for the BST. I had been on the paved roads for 10 minutes and just started down the single-track when the light shifted down from high to medium light output. It was still enough light to ride and I recall the manual said I should have 20 minutes so I kept going. Not a minute later it dropped down to low. I guess the battery had lost a lot of charge from sitting for 3 weeks. I took the hint and turned around only to have the light shut off only 20 yards down the trail. It's a good trail and I know it well so I just rode it with no light back only 100 yards to the trailhead. There I pulled out my trusty Petzl Tikka XP and it provided enough light to get me home. So my first night ride didn't go too well. The battery is charging and I'll try it again tomorrow or the next day.