Bleeding Obvious

The first Covid casualty that I knew personally as a work colleague and friend. Andy Fuller, who I worked with at INMARSAT in the late 90s, has dies from the virus. Very sad. I wonder whether a time will come when we all knew someone who was taken by the virus.

Back to bikes:

What a wonderful machine the bicycle is. It surprises me that the ancient Greeks or Romans never came up with the idea. Just imagine if Harold Godwinson had some bikes at his disposal - the journey from Stamford Bridge to Hastings would have taken a fraction of the time, allowed him more preparation to fight William the Bastard and, instead of poncy French names like William, Gilbert and Brian, we'd all have solid, Saxon names like Athelstan and Æthelflæd, with the history of England having been completely different. Hay maintains Harold could still have come a cropper had his cloak or sword gotten caught in his bike spokes.

My armchair-comfort bike seat arrived yesterday. Can't use it on any of the bikes here, as it needs a vertical post, and the seats already on the bikes have their own, integrated posts or the posts have angled bits on them that aren't conducive to adding the armchair.

On Friday I thought I'd bleed the back brake on Colin's DiamondBack bike and duly proceeded to Terry's Cycle Shop. Upon requesting a bleed kit for QUAD QHD-SP disk brakes I was told that, while they have one in the workshop, they're not for retail.

Went to Bike Station, a few yards down the road, and managed to purchase a generic bleed kit with some brake fluid for £37, which I thought a tad steep, but there was no other option without ordering online and waiting God knows how long for delivery.

The QUAD QHD-SP is a strange disk braking system, as there is no bleed valve / nipple on the master cylinder, which caused me some consternation. My friend, Simon, a keen cyclist and Iron Man, put me in contact with one of his friends who has more experience of bleeding brakes. It transpired that the method of bleeding the QUAD QHD-SP is somewhat unorthodox and involves a of spillage. I tried and tried for several hours, before coming to the conclusion that there had to be a blockage somewhere in the piping. Removing the plastic cover from where the pipe entered the master cylinder revealed a very badly rusted joint - so bad that the pipe couldn't be unscrewed from the master cylinder without destroying the screw joint - which I successfully did (destroy it, I mean). So I was left with a totally useless back brake master cylinder.

The QUAD QHD-SP isn't manufactured anymore, so there was no way I could obtain an identical replacement. Decided to look on Facebook Market for a similar replacement for both the front and back brake - for aesthetics - and managed to find a complete set for sale in Kiddermister at the princely sum of £15, which is a steal. Negotiated the contract plus postage and am now waiting for them to be delivered.

Meanwhile, I completely removed the rear brake and we went out for a cycle ride yesterday with me using just the front brake. Hay and I did just short of 19 miles.

On getting home, I was advised by No.1 Son that I should be using the Strava app to monitor my bike rides, rather than Great Britain Topo Maps, which I use for orienteering on walks. Seems to me that Strava is for the competitive bike riders - I'm just interested in my own route, speed and time. Strava users follow each other - I'm not the least bit interested in following someone else's competitive cycling efforts. If I did become competitive, I'd wear my wetsuit, flippers and motorcycle helmet to show just how competitive I can be...