Brakes and Lubricant Don’t Mix

I recently dropped some dough to buy my first full-suspension mountain bike.  I used to ride a hand-me-down hard-tail bike from my dad, but that bike died when I drove it into our carport in college.  At the end of this winter I finally was able to buy a bike with nice enough components so that I could really hurt myself as I tried to keep up with riding partners.  Like taking on anything new, a painful learning curve accompanied the journey for the first few months.  This particular lesson boiled down to me realizing that lubricants and brakes don’t mix.

Post ride 1 with the bike.

I spent the first two months riding by myself, building up strength in my kayaker legs and learning trails around the Boise Foothills.  Eventually, I wanted a veteran to show me some trails that I hadn’t seen, so I reached out to my buddy Roger Phillips – the famed Idaho Statesman Outdoors writer – who knows Idaho mountain biking as well as anybody.  That cool, sunny evening Roger hoped on his new Santa Cruz bike and took off, leading me down the trails around the Eagle Velo Park.  Within seconds I realized the last minute tune-up I did before Roger got there was a huge mistake…

From riding across creeks and whatnot I had some buildup on my brakes, which caused an awful squeal every time I gripped them to slow down.  Normally you would use some rubbing alcohol to clean the brake discs and abate the noise.  However, at the time all I had in my truck to resolve the screech was a cleaning/lubricating solution that was designed for the bike chain.  My theory was that by not shaking up the solution I would just get the “cleaning liquid” on the rag and could then clean the brakes.  My theory was wrong.

However, at first the theory seemed like it worked.  As Roger got ready to ride I cruised around the parking lot testing to see if the brakes still squealed.  The noise had stopped, so I was stoked.  At least until I hit the trail.

Roger, clueless to any of the above, took off down the trail at a good click, looking for that adrenaline rush that leads all mountain bikers to clip into their pedals.  Problem was, this pace was a little too fast for my “recently tuned” bike.  I spent the next hour and a half trying to keep up with Roger, doing everything I could to stay on the trail.  But I could never slow down no matter how hard I squeezed the brakes.  Every turn I ended up busting out of the single track and nearly going over the handlebars as I crashed through the sagebrush.  At one point Roger even passed me and shouted something along the lines of, “gotta watch out for those hairpin turns.”  Right.  And watch out when you put grease on your brakes.  It was like I pulled an April Fool’s joke on myself in mid-March.

Roger is just now learning about all this as he reads this post.  I couldn’t admit to my stupidity the day of the ride.  After surviving the experience and then really cleaning my brakes once I got home, I realized the story was too good not to share.  If you can’t laugh at yourself, then life probably isn’t going to seem all that fun.

Whether you’re in the market for a new bike, or whether you’re about to go for one of your first rides of the season, keep in mind that greasing your brakes is not the most Danger Ready way to hit the trails.

~JDR~