So far, new pads (Cane Creek canti-post, look just like the Dia-Compes, 20 bucks a bike's worth at the LBS,) and the injudicious application of a half-round file (which I bought to trim the seat tube I bought for the crank / BB Bravo Charlie Foxtrot on the PPPKN-10,) to the weirdo notched / slotted / whatevered washer / spacer / thingie seem to have silenced the Mafacs, and without whacking my scary bone.

Thanks to Piff, bulgie , gugie noglider, Jan Heine, and everybody else who has contributed to the C&V storehouse of Mafac lore.

Adjusting the things is still a nightmare of unintuitive interactions, but as you do it wrong, over and over, making different mistakes each time, the inner logic of them slowly reveals itself. And, yes, there is one... it's French logic, (Frogic?) but it is a logic. It seems to have been based on the basic principle that the smaller a part is, the more parts of more jobs it should be doing simultaneously. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry would have loved these things.

Tomorrow, I'll take her out again. I got pretty durned close with lever positions before the howl drove me from the saddle, so if I've got the brakes dialed in, I should be taping bars in the afternoon.

--Shannon