I was about to take a spin this late afternoon to get that mileage up there, and decided to tweak my brakes as I was a bit lazy installing them. Specifically I didnt grind the housing ends flat, which makes for mushy braking.
Well, when I pulled the front brake cable, I saw it was frayed inside the lever. Nice to catch it before it snapped! Did I need to go to the store for a cable? Nah, I had the leftover end from a cable Id put on a mtb a while back. Cables come with one end for mtb levers, and the other for road levers. I had a couple feet worth, just enough. Had put it in the bucket thinking, "Ill never need this".
Decided to lengthen the housing a bit to make the routing smarter, so I had to remove the bar tape all the way to the levers. Being sh*tty overpriced Stella Azzura, it shredded upon removal as the glue was strong. No biggie, I had half a bars worth of almost matching cork tape. I peeled the old glue strip off the tape so I could have the fresh side up top, and just spliced it in. Did the other side to match. Cant tell its two brands from a meter away. Saved $15.
Then on the ride, I broke a spoke in back at the hub flange. A pretty common break, but my first in a decade. Had a wheel in the garage with a cracked rim, but with the exact perfect length quality DT spokes. Was able to harvest a few with an electric screwdriver from the back. They came off perfectly straight with no bends, so fixed the wheel, and threw a couple in the Camelpak for future fixes.
If Id had to go out and source such dumb little bits it would have cost me an hour and $30.
/me hugs parts bucket.
Also goes to show how easy traditional wheels are to fix. Standard spoke, took me five minutes to screw in a fresh one.
Boutique wheels: go to shop, find manager that doesnt have head up ass, fork about trying to find a replacement proprietary spoke, pay $20 to order, wait ten days.
Thats not modern, its downright
Pony Express.
