Myka gets dirty

6:45pm - Well, if I don't have any work, I sure seem to know how to create it.  A couple of hours of mountain biking will give me just as much time of cleaning.  Everything is muddy - I'm splashed from my neck down, the bike is a mess, and the inside of my car needs cleaning from all the mud. That said, I was proud to head along the Telephone Trail in west Bragg Creek all by myself.  The trail's not maintained in summer, so I didn't see anyone.  There was a lot of deadfall, and to say that there were a lot of puddles is an understatement.  The Eastcott MTB book states that this trail should not be attempted after rain.  Again, I felt invincible and tried it after it's been raining non-stop for basically 2-3 weeks.  Once it got to a point where I spent more time carrying my bike over trees and balancing across logs, I gave in and decided to turn around.  It was slow-going, but fun.  Near the end I also wiped out for the first time on this bike.  The mud was soft enough to lessen the blow to my shoulder, but it was still hard enough to cause another wardrobe malfunction.  I was glad to at least have a few wet baby wipes in my car.  All in all, a good day of riding.  Now the bike's on the balcony ready to be washed down.

The trail still looked so simple here

Start of the mud

Now this is mountain biking :-)

Yesterday I took my bike in to Bow Cycle for its first tune-up.  They said they'd like to keep it overnight and re-bleed the rear brakes.  That sounded good to me, but when I picked it up today they had also changed the rear rotor.  The first photo shows the front rotor - what the originals looked like.  I loved the 'wavy' look and thought the rotors were amongst the coolest parts on my bike.  The second photo shows the new rear rotor.  I'm not quite sure what to make of it yet.  Looks shouldn't matter, but they basically took my favourite part away.  Now the rear rotor is 160mm (was 140mm), which is supposed to increase braking power and heat up less.  This is recommended for more downhill riding, whereas the original was designed for more cross-country riding.  Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't have told them that it squeaked coming down from Highwood Pass?  If anyone who knows anything about hydraulic disc brakes is reading this, could you please let me know your opinion?  Right now I'm quite tempted to call them back to make sure they keep the old one so that I can have it switched back.  And here's a really stupid question: should you brake more with the front or back?  All my life I thought with the back, to prevent one from flying over the handlebars, but a lot of MTB websites say yous hould use your front brake most (i.e., 90%) of the time.  I'm confused!

Front rotor (original Tektra, 160mm)

Rear rotor (160mm, don't know what brand; previously had 140mm Tektra on it)