Last Sunday was a good day for a winter ride. It was overcast, and cold, but not too cold. I had an open window for riding in the early afternoon. Since the weather does not always cooperate for riding in the winter - I don’t mind the cold, but very slick icy roads and low visibility are issues for me - essentially I try to avoid any road conditions that makes me hard for cars to see or safely avoid - I geared up and headed out.
And it was glorious:
Yes - this is glorious. I recognize, however, that it’s possible we have different ideas of what “glorious” means…
Or at least, it was for the first quarter mile or so. Then it felt like something was dragging a bit, and I experienced a brief, slow speed donut in the snow. This was mildly entertaining, things seemed to loosen back up, and a brief visual inspection didn’t find anything in the fender wells or brakes, so I continued on.
Well - I did for another half-mile or so. That’s when the left brake just locked up. Not a little, not just creating drag. It just wouldn't allow the wheel to move.
I played around with it at the side of the road a bit trying to get it free. It wasn’t super cold and I had the right level of gear on, so I wasn’t at risk of exposure. And while I don’t love working on something on the side of the road, one of the benefits to prairie riding is extended sight lines - you can see if anyone is coming.
I can see for miles and miles…
The handle had locked in position and would not open. The brake was clearly clamped shut. I pulled my multi-tool out of my bag and opened it up and then paused. I looked at the tool, and then the brake, and then back at the tool again... a vision started to form in my mind’s eye of dropping one or more vital brake components into the snow, never to be seen again...
I closed the multi-tool and put it away and did something I don’t believe I have ever actually done before:
I called for a ride.
Fortunately my child - LB - was still home for winter break, so I had an otherwise semi-idle rescue crew readily available. And she has been tooling around the vicinity in the mobile trike garage for most of the break, so she was comfortable driving it under all sorts of conditions. So I waited, just off the side of the road, breaking off and kicking around junks of ice and snow to pass the time while I was watching for my liberation in the form of my Subaru Outback (and watching for other road traffic too).
I wasn’t far from home (I could still see my house from across the field - these are really open sight lines, especially once the corn comes down), so it didn’t take terribly long till I saw a vehicle coming from the right direction. But while it looked familiar from a distance, it didn’t look quite right. And then as it approached, I realized the problem:
LB had arrived in MLW’s Honda CR-V.
Thing is: The Expedition doesn’t really fit in the CR-V.
We managed to squeeze it in there, under duress, one time, and that was when we went shopping for the Outback. I had wanted to bring it along so I could see if it would fit in the back of the wagon before I made a final call on buying it. But when I say “squeeze it in”, I mean exactly that - the rear end was pressed hard up against the roof, and MLW had to ride the entire trip with her knees up against the dash and her seat back bolt-upright (I really don’t deserve her). And she is a tiny person.
So I said to LB “well, thanks for coming, but you’ve brought the wrong car”.
LB: “You didn’t specify which one you wanted.”
And this is true, of course. She’s got me there - I didn’t specify. But she had been driving the Outback almost exclusively for the entire break, so...
EJW: “Ok - I’m specifying now. Go back and get the Outback.”
LB: “Don’t you want to at least try to get it in here first?”
I did not. As already stated, we’d tried it before, without great success. Trying it again with a trike that was also now covered with snow and ice did not seem a worthy experiment. So I sent her back - her eyes at risk of completely rolling into the backside of her skull all the way, I’m sure - and waited some more.
Back at the garage I followed my usual ritual of cleaning the snow off of the trike with the air compressor, and then looked more closely at the brake. I made a couple of adjustments and hit the moving parts with WD-40 to move out any ice or water that might be in there - I’m assuming either ice or some other sediment got into the mechanism. It seems to have recovered now, and I’ve been out riding since without incident, so hopefully this means the issue is resolved.
Fingers crossed...