Monstercross weekend was a lot of fun, with the rest of the family out of town I was free to hang out after the race to catch up with friends, and have a few beers. Then Sunday, a friend hung around and we went out for a good mountain bike ride on one of my favorite trails around, Squirrel Gap. The ride wasn’t rushed, we had a beer in the parking lot afterwards, it’s been a while since I’ve done something like that back to back. It was definitely a nice escape weekend. I also managed to finish the ride on Sunday in enough time to do a grocery run and have a good dinner plan for when everyone got home.
Race/Event weekends almost always seem to lead to a less than optimal production when it comes to the following week. It doesn’t seem to matter what the event is either it’s a lot like the day after a party in college, telling stories, remembering things you already forgot, and pictures showing up you didn’t realize were taken. Just this time it’s a little less embarrassing.
However, my real job has been busy lately and the youngest had a Doc appointment early in the week so there wasn’t much time to be stuck in that rut. On top of those two things the bike maintenance was starting to pile up and need attention. Then after feeling really behind, Katie came back from a ride to let me know her rear brake wasn’t working. I grab the brake and…nothing…like it isn’t even attached. A quick inspection and the hydraulic hose had a wear spot where most of the fluid was leaking out, at least it wasn’t an ambiguous issue.
The upcoming weekend I had both kids solo from Early Friday morning to Monday night. So time to do anything was likely going to be incredibly hard to come by. I needed to try and prioritize things and see what I could put off, what I could get help with, what I wanted to work on, and how I could get some sort of riding in. This is tough for me at times, I used to do all of my bike work myself and it’s something I generally enjoy. I am mildly mechanically inclined and derived some satisfaction from really understanding my bikes. These days I have to rely on help far more often than I ever have in the past. Which is probably frustrating for them as much as it is me as I suspect I may be harder to deal with sometimes than your average customer.
I ended up taking the non-straightforward repair over the Sycamore to get some help. I worked in the brake work on the Timberjack (still not sure its fixed though) and put the Vassago back into trailer mode after everyone was in bed. I did sneak a quick early ride in Friday, just enough to get the legs going and get back in time to get some work done before the kids got up. I was looking forward to the weekend with the kids but I was worried about getting things done. I still need to replace the hydraulic hose on Katie’s bike but I have until Tuesday to try and work that one in.
It’s hard to keep up a lot of times, even when I’m not thinking about how to get to my riding there still really isn’t a lot of relaxing time. I just try hard to make sure the right things get my attention first. This weekend while Katie’s out having a much needed vacation my goal is just to make sure all the good things she does with the kids don’t totally fall through the cracks.
