So while I didn’t get YBD completed this weekend, a last minute opportunity let me to get SOMETHING done, in a weekend where I didn’t imagine to get anything done on anything at all. So win win win!

The main thing that’s been holding up YBD is the front brake situation: getting a brake and bolt that would work, then figuring out how to string all this stuff together. The brake I was trying to use was an old rear brake, and I had hoped to put the longer bolt on it and use it, but that was proving elusive AND it was shorter reach than desired. So I got the long-reach center-pull Dia Compe brake caliper, and this was the chance to finally get int there and make it work.

The tricky thing wasn’t so much that all this stuff strings onto the same bolt, but the sequence and fitting them together that made it challenging. It’s about access. The fender gets partially hung by an L bracket that fits on that bolt. The bracket has to be attached to the fender first, making it nearly impossible to hold the brake, the brake bolt, the fender bracket, AND the rack bracket, in place, thread the teeeeeeny nut from the back, and allen that sucker down without things slipping. But practice makes perfect, let me tell you, because I did it several times: once, the bolt was too long and I required spacers. Once, the rack bracket wasn’t optimized in location and needed to be moved back in the stack. Once, the fender bracket needed to be moved forward so it could be elevated. Anyway, I finally got it all dialed in.

Part of the problem is that each of these disparate elements is just part of a larger bracketing system, so you don’t know what adjustments need to be made after you get it set up. The adjustments to one throw off the next. I would calibrate the rack positioning and the fender would be off, so I’d correct the fender and the brake would hang weird… it was very much like trying to get good at golf.

Anyway, the fender is held by that center L-bracket to the brake bolt, which allows you to raise and lower it relative to the tyre for clearance ( needed more clearance, since I’m using knobbies)… the it’s stabilized by two rods then come down to the anchor eyelets at the tips of the forks. These not only stabilize it but influence it in axis, so there’s lots of tweaking to try and keep the fender roughly aligned on the wheel.

The rack is also supported by an L-bracket. It has legs that bolt to the underside of the rack, and then down to the same eyelets at the fork. The parts aren’t labeled, are symmetrical, and there’s a host of helpful bolts and washers in the package. And no instructions. I mean, it’s not rocket science, but it’s always nice to know what the options are, or the proper positioning prior to experimentation, when you’re juggling so much other stuff. But my dear friends at SOMA Fab seem too busy to answer a three week old request for a PDF of the instructions, so I gave up and proceeded, and it was fine.

The rack comes with a number of pieces of attachment hardware, like I mentioned, and one set were long screws that were perfectly sized to get through the rack legs, the fender rails, and the fork eyelets just so. Took extra hands I didn’t have to get it all lined up and in tension, but it worked.

[My new desktop btw]

One tricky part is that the rack was apparently designed for use with side pull brake levers only. The L-bracket comes off of the brake bolt, same as the fender, but it’s wider and obstructs the passing of the brake cable from the calipers. Initially, I had just naturally assumed that this bracket (more of a fillet than an L) would be the opposite orientation, ie. come DOWN from the bolt, angle out, and then go horizontal. However, doing that throws the positioning of the rack’s legs way off. It’s possible there’s a way to reverse the legs and possibly, with a different eyelet position, make that connection still work, but it seems to jut it way forward. Anyway, I solved this issue by bending the bracket at a sharper angle away from the brake bolt, making the rise more shallow, and then looping the center-pull brake’s arc cable OVER it.

The brake will always be in a mid-closed position anyway, giving the cable ample clearance OVER the bracket to host the cable ‘clothes hanger’ thing. I hope!

So, by the end of this, I had the rack, fender, brake, replacement salmon sticky brake pads, and wheel all together and tight. With another 90-120 minutes or so, I could have been largely done, but this was all happening out on the back deck and once the baby had had enough, she had had enough. She’s been sick, and so my time was borrowed anyway. So i lucked out, overall!

Next step, drilling the rear fender for L-bracket mounting….

Note: these blurry pics are the result of quickly retaking them down in the bikeBasement after discovering all of my afternoon pics up on the deck, surrounded by flora and fauna and microbrew and BBQ, occurred sans SD CARD. Oh brother.

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