Steve Tilford

I hate to admit it, but we truly live in a disposable society. I try the best I can to not participate, but I do on a daily basis. I guess I am somewhat of a hypocrite ragging about it here, but I hate it.

Yesterday, I had my day sort of planned out. Ride earlier in the day, to rest a bit for racing today, then make some phone calls, watch the Olympics, etc. I did some errands around noon, and when pulled back into my driveway, I got out of my van and smelled a distinct hot brake odor. Like really strong. So, I walk around the van and put my hand down by the rotors. The right rear is super hot. So, I get out the floorjack, and jack up the rear. I put the van in neutral, and try the rear wheels. The left turns like normal, the right is seized.

So, I get out the air compressor and take the wheel off. It is hotter than shit. I can’t stop myself and next thing I know I have the brake caliper off. I had to use a towel to hold the caliper, it was so hot.

So, I let the caliper cool down and check it out. It is a 1 ton van, so it has pretty beefy brakes. It has two pistons per caliper. One of the pistons doesn’t move when hydraulic pressure is applied. There is a rip in the seal boot, protecting the piston from the elements.

So I take the caliper off and hit it in with a wooden dowel. It loosens the piston, so I reattach it back into the van and have Kris pump the brakes to push the piston completely out. There is a seal, that has a rubber boot attached, that keeps the piston sealed. I pried the seal out and that exposes more of the piston. The piston has just a tad of surface rust, no pitting. I just take some steel wool and remove the rust. But the boot is toast.

I cleaned my hands and went inside to try to secure a seal/boot. Man, what a hassle. I look around the internet and am not really positive what I need. There are caliper rebuild kits, with seals, but all for different calipers. I call the Ford dealership and they say that they don’t sell individual seals. I talk the guy into looking at the schematics anyway. He says he is surprised, but he sees a rebuild kit with the seal. But, the kit is $40. A complete new caliper is just $50 at Advanced Auto Parts. I call a couple of auto parts store and they say that they quit selling brake rebuild kits because of liability reasons. Really, liability problems. Maybe they shouldn’t even sell calipers if the consumer might install them incorrectly? Maybe quit selling auto parts all together, since they might be liable for consumer misuse? I thought about ordering a couple different seal kits from Rock Auto, but finally just give in and order the caliper from Advanced, to be picked up.

The seal would have been $3.99 if I could have found the right one. But, it is nearly $60 for the new caliper.

If someone who doesn’t know hot brake smell, I’m sure they would just keep driving the car until something gave, either the rotor or pad. Then if they take the car to the Ford dealership, where the caliper was $120, I’d bet it cost another $250 for labor. So that would be about 100 times as much as the $4 seal. I paid 15 times the amount of the seal, plus a little brake fluid and brake cleaner.

It is such a waste. There was a core charge, so they are going to send in my old caliper and refurbish it and send it back out for use, so that is a little consolation. But the throw away movement our country has evolved into, bugs me, on nearly a daily basis. Forget the different of cost, the shipping of the caliper around the world to get rebuilt when I could have just put in a seal and used it for another decade is just plain wrong.

Most things can be fixed. Can you imagine throwing your bike away when you break a spoke? Or ding your wheel? I’ve garbage-picked a Honda lawn mower that its only issue was a broken pull cord. Who would throw away that? Just about anyone living in suburban America is who. Nearly all electronics that are out of warranty become trash. It is so wrong.

Anyway, that is the way it is going, so I guess I’ll try to keep swimming against the current as much as I can.

Old caliper and worn out seal.

New/rebuilt caliper.

Yesterday I was mildly surprised. Not only about that I won the race, but a multitude of other things. I was surprised how much it hurt to take it up 10 notches from training to racing. It surprised me how strong other guys already are mid February. It surprised me that I forgot how fun it is to corner at 30 mph on sewups.

The race was a one hour criterium, but better, or worse than that, it was a points race. So there were 3 points sprints, so one about every 15 minutes, plus the end. There were about 40 + guys at the line, which seemed pretty great considering. Seems like criteriums have been getting a bad rap recently. Maybe it is a Pro deal, Pros not liking criteriums much, I’m not sure, but for some reason, the criterium is looked down upon by the average Joe bike racer.

I think criteriums are great. I think that it is the best public viewing of bike racing and probably the only segment of the sport that might eventually become a successful American spectator sport. Plus, it is a great way to get in a ton of speed work and intensity without going out and banging your head against the wall alone.

The race started out crazy fast. The course was pretty much a rectangle, with one corner a sweeper. Right from the gun, it was on. I was way over my limit, or what I considered my limit, from the get-go. Somewhere during the 2nd or 3rd lap I was thinking that maybe I wasn’t going to be able to finish. I didn’t want to miss the front group, so was covering just about anything that moved. I’m not close to fit enough for that. So I followed wheels for a couple laps and then, probably about 5 laps in, I felt the field was pretty done, so I put in a half-assed attack. Nearly immediately, Joe Fox, Cycle City, blew by me and proceeded to take a full lap at, what I considered, warp speed. When I looked back after 3/4 a lap, there were just two other guys, Garrick Valverde, Velotek, and Michael Smith, Kaos.

That was pretty much the right combination of riders for a successful break. We soon got into a fairly even rotation. If anything, I was pulling the shortest, but I had so many question marks floating around, I wasn’t willing to make the stupid error of getting gassed and spit out early.

Pretty soon they rang the bell for the first sprint. It was going to be straight into a pretty strong head/crosswind. We all kept in rotation and Michael led it out. I didn’t have any problem coming around him, which mildly surprised me. It gave me some confidence, but was still early.

So, we kept the rotation going pretty much until the end of the race. I won all three sprints, one by just a bike throw over Garrick. Eventually, towards the end of the race we had lapped nearly everyone. On the last lap, there was only one group left to lap, a big group with my TradeWind Energy team mates, Brian Jensen and Bill Stolte, and most the other historically better riders. We rode into them with just 2 corners to go.

This is when I got a little mixed up. I was trying to follow Michael Smith, who had a pretty strong team mate leading him out, but somehow we got juggled pretty far back when Joe Fox attacked with 1/2 a lap to go. Then Garrick somehow came by us and had a huge gap with 200 meters. I was just following Michael, drafting him on the left. Somehow, maybe a wind gust, I ended up on the far left of the road, which was a pretty beat up, cracked surface. I hit a parallel crack to my tires and had to do a big stutter coast to keep my balance. That was all she wrote. By the time I got going, I couldn’t get by Michael. Garrick was a few lengths ahead. But, since I’d won all the intermediary sprints, I still had enough points to win.

I wasn’t too bad at the end. My left leg was not up to speed, which is becoming normal. But I seemed to have okay form compared to everyone else, which was nice.

We’d ridden over the 30 miles from Topeka and got some extra clothing on and headed back pretty much right after the race. We weren’t going to have much extra daylight. But the problem was the temperature dropped super fast. Like 20 degrees in an hour. I was once again frozen. Mainly my fingers and feet. I think they got way too cold on Wednesday and it is going to take awhile before they quit punishing me.

Right now I’m driving to Columbia Missouri for a 60 mile road race. I couldn’t talk anyone else into going, so it’s just Trudi, Bromont and me. I didn’t get enough sleep, which is usual on race weekends, but unsual now, since I haven’t been racing for so long. I think the last criterium I did was the first week of July, the Nationals Criterium Champhionships. That is weird.

Okay, that is all for now. My worry today is mainly about dressing correctly. It is only supposed to be in the mid 30’s, so I don’t want to miss it.