Tighten up! & 2/6/11 Session

Whats this look like to you? Wellllp. That doesn't matter, because your a hater anyway. Let me tell you what it is to me. This is the cause of a crash. One that could have been way way worse. And we are now going to use this as enlightenment on bike maintenance. I unloaded the bike at the spot, did my usual quick inspection. Nothing falling off. All the levers and brakes feel solid. Lets ride!

I clutch up a seat stander, dip it in, knock out 5 solid O's like butttaaaaaa. In my head I'm Ice Cubing it up.. Today is a good day! Set it down and start trying a couple of small variations and I notice my handbrake is getting softer. What the hell..I have never had an issue with my fluid, but truth be told I haven't changed it in a while. So I'm like hell guess I'll keep riding see if it was just a bubble or something. A couple foot brake tricks and then back to handbrake circles. This time I got a camera in my face so I'm dodging this person thats all up in my grill, working my body weight to compensate for a shitty feeling brake. Then all the sudden it gets out of control I clamp down on the lever and I feel a little pop and it goes to the bar. Bike comes back to twelve o clock and I aim it away from the photographer, it goes down without an issue.

What the hell! I look down to this, I'm like man those bolt heads are a little rusty but no way it rusted through and snapped off(I only use high quality bolts 8.8+). Well turns out the bolts backed all the way out! I threw some loctite in and tightened them all back up and went back to riding.

LET THIS BE A LESSON. We all take some things for granted on our bike. Please check all your vital bolts, calipers, handbrake brackets, rotors, etc etc. A little laziness and maybe me doing a sketchier trick this could have really hurt some people!

On to the riding. We started the day off blowing down the lot...with a leaf blower..jeez, quit being perverted! Me, Mike, and Dow rode pretty much all day. Dow was killing some sick sitdown no throttle hand waves. Mike was CREEEEEPING super slow through the lot. I thought he was about to just stall in the middle and clutch out. I know he hates it, but a little more gearing on his bike and he's turned into a monster progressing so quick.

Towards the end of the day we were all getting beat with all the wheelies. So endo practice ensued! I wasn't going for distance, was working on trying to carve some 180s. Never been able to get it to really kick at all so little progress was better than nothing. I ended up with a couple minor crashes/fall overs doing at the max 125 degree turns. All in all another fun day with the DOwheelies.com camp~!