On the way home from out last trip to the Ballyhoura Trail Centre, my bike decided it had enough and wanted to get off. At approx 50 miles per hour it decided to drop off the bike rack. Thats not a sight you want to see in your rear view mirror too often, your bike bouncing along the road and in to a ditch. Thank goodness there was no traffic behind us, or worse yet, coming towards us.
[su_row][su_column size=“2/3”]Miraculously, the damage was mostly cosmetic. The wheels and the handlebars took the brunt of the road and ditch impact. My Lizard Skin Peaty grips were pretty beat up, especially the lock on rings, and one of the end caps disappeared completely. These have now been replaced by a set of Lizard Skin Moab grips. The brake lever and gear lever clamps were all a bit scuffed. Worst though, was the cracked brake reservoir cap on the rear XT brake lever. The right hand cap was pretty damaged as well, but it was still complete. The left hand side however, was cracked through, and part of it was only hanging on through the clamping force of the bleed screw.[/su_column]
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Road Rash[/caption]
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According to the Internet, these covers are not available separately. Bummer. Except, once you start browsing on Ebay, you can find pretty much anything. Luckily for me, I stumbled on a seller that had original reservoir caps for both sides at €10 a side (approximately after currency conversion). I’ll post the part numbers as soon as I find the packaging for any one else that needs these.
Unfortunately for me, between the Internet telling me these were unavailable and my finding them for sale, I had already purchased a new set of brakes - a full set of Shimano Zee M640. The XT set are being sold on to one of my riding buddies to replace their budget hydraulic brakes.
[su_row][su_column size=“2/3”]I say unfortunately, but the Zee brakes, with 4 pistons per caliper, are fantastic brakes. Don’t get me wrong, I have used XT brakes on my last two bikes and never had any complaints. The Zees have a totally different feel to them, however, much more modulated - the XTs always had a very narrow window between on and off. [/su_column]
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New brakes[/caption]
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I also took the opportunity to fit a set of Superstar Components AM carbon rims re-using the Superstar Switch Ultra hubs from my old set of aluminium rims. I partially covered my DIY wheel building attempts in my last post. It took a while, and it would certainly have been quicker to have them built by a pro, but the satisfaction from doing it myself is priceless. Besides, I can do it again in future if need be and I should be able to keep the wheels running true from now on having a better understanding of spoke tension etc.
All-in-all, having the my bike fall of the back of the car hasn’t been all bad.
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The patient, all back together and discharged.[/caption]
