Brakes!

Angel's got brakes! Well, just one. Because I am mechanically naive I did not realize the lack of spring in my Mafac 1975 brake lever was no problem. Upon sorting through the brake lever bin at Velocipede I realize that none of the Weinman/Diacompe non-aero brake levers had springs. Eureka! I had all the parts necessary.

Except housing for my new brake cables! Curses! Ok, well there's a little piece left in the parts bin. Let's throw that on (assembling the first few times I put everything in the wrong order). Wow, fits great. Tighten that shit up, and hey! I got a brake!

I am nearly ready to head out the door for the first ride when I squeeze energetically and the cable housing covering splits back from the brake hood. Hm. There should be one of those stoppers there. But it's long gone. What else could I use? I sort through a bunch of nuts but they're all too big. Can't use tape. Hm. I wonder if...a piece of chain link would work? Sure enough, it's a good size, but because it doesn't set right in the hood opening the cable slides out the front. I tape it down with some electrical tape and jam a cable end-cover in the slot (which is not very useful, actually, as it doesn't fit right) but now we got ourselves some good braking action. Forty-five minutes later I finally get the adjustment right and the screws all tightened up and I have 20 minutes until the finale of Project Runway.

I take her out. The brakes still work! I brake hard and the fameux 'cri de Mafac' awakens the entire neighborhood. Oh well. I'll have to fix that later. For now I am cruisin'.

The Ideale saddle I had spied at the co-op was still there after the bike swap people moved the entire space into the next-door warehouse and back, and to my dismay I realized the leather is dried out and cracked beyond repair. Nothing too drastic, but it's parched and it ain't gonna heal itself with no Obenauf's beeswax product, that's for sure. I put a little on there anyway just to see, and it was happier, but I don't think you could get much for the thing on Ebay. So instead I am bidding an ungodly amount of money on a new old stock Ideale. Because I absolutely, positively, MUST have a french saddle on my Peugeot. I'm turning into one of those people. And I haven't even showed you the bag....