time to spend some money Last night I rode one of my shortest trail rides ever. I arrived at the Rock in time to talk with David Strawhorne, who was finishing up a ride. After a few minutes, I called Ainsley and found out he wouldn't be able to make it. Dang. Then Ashby and his crew came out of Blair Wood. I wavered, but decided, nah, I'll just go home.

Pepe and Grattan showed up, and Pepe said they were riding to Fell Hunt Camp and back - so if I headed out immediately, they'd look out for me. Sounded good, so I set out - and immediately noticed my lights were kinda dim despite charging all day long. Hmm. By the time I reached the top of the hill, the trail was getting hard to follow easily. When I reached the T, I went left and stopped at the gravel pile where the road was maybe 20 feet away. Jim Cox and John Lake came up the road and turned back onto the trail on their way back to Fell. A minute later, Pepe and his crew came charging up. I told them I was going to take the fire road back to my truck.

By the time I got to the bottom of the hill, my lights looked like cigarette ends in the dark. Time to start pricing new lights, as my cheap-o rechargeable unit is dead, dead, dead.

This afternoon I came home and found a new Miche bottom bracket waiting for me in the mail. Down to the basement I went. It helped, but did not completely eliminate the eccentricity in my chainring's operation. Hmm. I wound up using a combination of rubber mallet thumps and judicious filing on the spider to tweak and tune it. By the time I was done, it was about as good as it's likely to get. I'm not yet sure if it's the chainring or the spider, but I'm sure I'll start tweaking it again at some point.  ¶ 10:29 PM