In the Great Purge Of 2024, I split up a lovely pair of Ultegra brakes, as one of them was on my Midlife Crisis Fixie and I was too lazy to switch it for something else:
Since, like most bike dorks, I get hung up on meaningless things, it started praying upon my mind that I had one sad Ultegra brake just sitting in the parts bin all by itself. So recently I visited a popular Internet auction site and purchased a new partner for it–an inexpensive proposition as nobody wants rim brakes anymore. (Apart from certain boutique models that people use to adorn their Crusts and Rivendae, of course.)
The brake looked pristine, and what can really be wrong with a rim brake, right? So upon receipt I left the seller some positive feedback and tucked it away. Then over the weekend I decided to pop them both on the Fagginator, which already has a perfectly good pair of no-name brakes on it (not to mention an explosive wheelset):
Even for an idiot like me, installing a pair of rim brakes is a very simple procedure. However, despite the new-to-me brake’s pristine appearance, I discovered during installation that it had an unusual amount of play in it. So I set it aside, and this morning I decided to take it apart and see what was going on. Until now I’ve never disassembled a dual-pivot rim brake, for the simple reason that I’ve never had to; in my experience you just use them forever with no issues, and maybe once in awhile you’ve got to squirt some lube into them or something. Anyway, here’s how you disassemble and reassemble a Shimano dual-pivot brake:
Seriously, don’t do it.
Look, I’m sure it’s fairly easy if you do a little research and take your time. I did neither, and the situation quickly went from this:
To this:
To this, which I ultimately consigned to a plastic bag for when I have more time to deal with it, which should be sometime after my seventeen (17) children have moved out of the house:
On top of all that, adding yet another bag of crap to a parts bin already full of bags of crap has caused me even more stress than the single Ultegra brake did, and I fear the only way to regain my mental health will be to undertake a Great Purge of 2025 in which I admit to myself I probably don’t need stuff like a drawer full of 25 year-old bike computer parts and consign it all to the trash.
Speaking of stressful subjects, this past Wednesday a delivery rider has been killed by an FDNY truck driver:
The driver was responding to an emergency call of a baby choking:
Also, over the weekend, a driver fleeing the NYPD killed a cyclist:
The police had attempted to pull the driver over, and instead the driver sped away:
Both of these come after another driver fleeing the police killed a cyclist in Astoria, Queens:
Police were pursuing the driver, who had allegedly committed a burglary:
In the case of the FDNY incident, commenters blame the size of our emergency vehicles:
And the speed at which they’re driven:
In the case of the NYPD incidents, advocates cite the increase in “hot pursuits:”
The further implication is that the NYPD is wrong to engage in these pursuits in the first place. It’s undeniably true that none of these people deserved to die, and in retrospect it’s completely obvious that apprehending a burglar was not worth an innocent person’s life. Of course we must consider that they may be wrong. But it’s also not that simple. Advocates lament the increase in pursuits, but is that increase the cause of this mayhem, or is this mayhem the inevitable result of increased lawlessness? This same lawlessness results in all the “ghost cars” the advocates rightly hate so much, and which themselves are the cause of much mayhem. So can you really reign in lawlessness without police intervention? Do you not stop the driver of a ghost car because he might speed off and kill somebody? Is it reasonable to think the Reckless Driver Abatement program would stop a criminal from driving? Do these people really care if their licenses are suspended or if their cars are towed? If their licenses are suspended they keep driving anyway, and if their cars are towed they just steal another one. It’s ironic that many of the same people who have a zero-tolerance approach to bike lane blockers also seem more inclined to blame the police than the criminals. This is not to say the police should be driving around like the Dukes of Hazzard, but it is to say that when someone commits a crime, speeds away, and kills somebody, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that it’s the criminal’s fault.
As for the readers’ response to the FDNY incident, and the critique of the vehicles, as I’ve mentioned before, this seems to be a trend in the advocacy world:
Unlike the other incidents, this one was not caused by a criminal; it was emergency responders coming to save a choking baby. The delivery rider’s death is a tragedy and we should of course allow for the possibility that the driver was at fault and investigate accordingly–whilst also bearing in mind the enormity of the circumstances. Consider this story, written by the then-executive director of Transportation Alternatives:
Funny how when it’s your kid that shit goes right out the window, isn’t it?
I’m not saying advocates are wrong here, but I am saying they can be like me with the brake, and that things aren’t always as easy as they seem.