Dust clearance!!!
 

I had a kermesse yesterday, and since it hadn't rained here since July 2 (really) I thought I'd be safe running the brakes close to the rims. Unfortunately, I had them even closer to the rims that I meant to and by the second lap of the race I had somehow collected enough dust somewhere in my braking system that the front brake wasn't releasing from the rim at all.

After struggling through a couple of laps that way I pulled into the pits and tried to unhook the brake to clear it out, but it would budge away from the rim. Someone who was racing later in the day helped me out and freed the rim enough to get it to spin temporarily, but within half a lap it was rubbing again.

Who knew that dust clearance could be an issue! :twitchy:

Lesson learned: aside from the obvious lesson of not doing a bozo job on the brake set up, I learned never to go into a race with my barrel adjusters tighened down all the way. A few turns of the barrel could have saved my race.

How close are you supposed to have them? I never thought about it. Mine contact about half way through the lever pull.

Yeah, half way sounds about right. As long as you don't bottom out on pull before you top out on braking power you're good. I just often have problems with having them too far from the rims, and this time I over-corrected.

Out of fear of the rim getting a wobble during a race I always leave some play. I was in a race last year where a front wheel brake spring would not let the shoe return. I found it when we were crossing a loose gravel road and the front wheel was skidding while I was racing.

After the painful experience at the kermesse, I was sure to give myself plenty of clearance and leave a lot of room to loosen things even more with the barrel adjusters before my first cross race yesterday. I took the bike out for a pre-race check up Saturday and didn't touch it again until Sunday's race. I thought I was OK.

Then about 5 minutes into the race, the brakes were rubbing. :cry:

I let out the slack with the barrel adjusters, but it only helped for about another minute or two. :twitchy:

Once again, I totally failed to figure out what the problem was and did the whole race with my brakes on. After the race, I stopped by the LBS tent and they spotted the problem right away. My left brake lever was sliding down the bar, pulling the cable tight!!!

Somebody got a picture of me during the race that shows it pretty well.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4128/...ef9a2bd8ee.jpg

How did I not notice that!?!?

Apparently I lean on the hoods a lot more during a race than I do in training rides.