Hydraulicaholicism

With the advent of the cellular telephone, I'm sure there were some rotary dial, land line loving holdouts, but as with all people suspicious of technology, they are usually dealt with in a swift and brutal fashion. Contemporize maaaaan. Quit livin' in the past! So after deciding to hop in a time machine and go back a handful of years ago in my mountain biking life, the trigger was finally pulled on a set of Avid Elixir R hydraulic brakes (BKST20852 & 20853) to replace the current setup of Avid BB7s. From what I'd read and seen in print these seemed like the most bang for the tiny amount of buck (think wallet opening and a cartoonish moth fluttering out). Piston size is halfway between a Juicy and a Code. Integrated reservoir. Less initial power and deep stroke modulation. Tool free reach adjust. Adjustable banjo. What do these things mean? Are they important? Sounds like gibberish fed through an electrified nonsense machine. We'll find out this weekend as the hot weather means fast and somewhat freaky, hot trail action. These come in a 185 and 203mm rotor, but for the sake of congruity, 160mm went on both front and rear. These are pre-bled and relatively hassle free. This means catastrophic brake failure is imminent. Just has to be.

Pre-bled goodness!
Post-bled goodness!


In drunken Australian vendor news, we're bringing in a whole mess of Knog locks for later in the year. They come in all sorts of weird colors and shapes but the names are fairly straightforward: Ringmaster, Fisticuff, Kabana, Party Frank and Kranksy. This is merely subterfuge to show you some clever bit of marketing from Canada that doesn't mock our health care system, for once.