Had a very good week last week, Other than some bad brakes.

 

Last week was one of my best weeks for exercising since the beginning of the journey. I was able to get out on my bike every day and though it was not 20 miles each ride I got a little over 100 miles for the week. I felt awesome at the end of it but my legs were very soar when walking up stairs and things. That is something I am very willing to deal with to get out and continue exercising. I do have some thoughts about the bike after getting this many miles done in one week and doing 500 miles since owning it. 

I started the week riding the Ozark Trail G.1 Explorer Gravel bike and the last two rides were on my specilized mountain bike... One of the rides I was going down the trail and saw a guy walking his dog which is no big deal I slow down a bit as I know that dogs sometimes wander around and I wanted to make sure that I gave plenty of notice when passing them. I did not hit my brakes I just stopped pedaling. As I thought after I called out "passing on your left" the dog looks over and starts to walk right in my path. The owner was on the phone not paying any attention so they ignored my statement of passing on your left. I hit my brakes and the bike slides forward like I am hardly touching the brakes. Like its stopping but it is not stopping quickly enough at all. I did not hit the dog I did end up stopping before anything happend but it was a close call. Dog owner was fine and the dog was very friendly is just wanted to get pats and I can't blame it for that. This close call made me question my brakes more and what could be going on with them as this is a new bike and the brakes should have been stopping me better than they did. I figured buy some brake pads and when they come in figure it out. The next ride I hopped on my mountain bike and first thing to notice the brakes which are 10 years old at this point stopped the bike with a light press of the brakes. This ride was much nicer in terms of stopping and made me thing there was something else going on with my gravel bike. 

New brakes came in and it was time to swap them out. I took the old brakes out and wipe the brake rotors with alcohol to clean them and looked at the old brake pads. I do not know what is going on with these.. They are covered in dust, oit, and chipped up at the bottom. Its not the normal wear and tear that you normally see with some dust on the outside and wear marks on them they are a mess. I tried wiping them off to see if they would clean up just to know and they did clean up with the oil but the chips taken out of the bottom became worse. They were not going to go back into the bike for a ride but I did put one back in to test it and it did not stop the wheel from moving. I spun the wheel and press the lever for the brake and the wheel spun slowly down to a stop. I deicded to put the new pads in and test again. The wheel stopped right away with a very slight press. This is how brakes should stop a bike not like they were stopping it before. I have not taken my gravel bike on another ride other than a very short bed in the new pads ride so I have yet to test things out fully but so far they seem to much better. This is just another thing I have to be aware of when riding this cheap bike. 

I am off to continue the journey! Have a wonderful day and thank you very much for reading!