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Old dog, new brakes

I was wrapping up this morning's dog walk and feeling like I wanted to do something with a bicycle. And by something, I mean I wanted to go for a ride. Unfortunately, the cool morning air was warming up pretty quickly and after already having dealt with blazing hot bike commutes (the riding I have to do) for several months, I just wasn't ready to face a blazing hot mountain bike ride (the riding I like to do). I decided instead to tackle some deferred bike maintenance. The plan was to patch the 6 or 7 punctured inner tubes I've set aside over the past month, but I was out of rubber cement and pretty low on my supply of bulk patches. Dang.

I then remembered that I'd just finished getting the parts needed to do some drivetrain and brake system upgrades on my wife's Rocky Mountain Element. I threw the bike up on the workstand, and spent a few hours installing a new rear derailleur, nearly-new shift pods, and a set of mechanical disk brakes, with new cables and housing for everything. The bike came with rim brakes but the wheels were built on 6-bolt hubs, so she didn't need new hoops. All that's left to do is for her to get the bar ends, brake levers, and shift pods positioned back the way she likes, tighten them down, and then we can hit the trail.

Addendum: After finding the morning hours inconveniently warm, I bagged my list of errands and went out for an early-evening mountain bike ride. And sure, it was actually warmer than it had been in the morning, but the skies had filled with clouds throughout the day. The overcast kept the sun from beating beating down on me, and that alone was enough to make the ride pretty tolerable.

Selfie showing I went for a ride sans dark shades