My rear brake is pretty done – I think it got air in the line on the plane. My front is still working ok, but also seems soft (and it’s annoyingly dragging a bit). Hoping to get some repair today.
Update: all the bike shops are closed, so I’m working on a backup plan: Baby Oil & a 30mm syringe.
Update 2: repair in progress! (Yes, that’s Silver City’s finest Motel 6 in the background). Got some baby oil from CVS and a 20ml syringe from Walmart, any air should navigate out. The dirtyish color at the top is the old brake fluid. For the curious: I asked on Reddit.
More Context:
The issue seems to be that there’s some air in the hydraulics of my brakes – not unheard of when shipping a bike by air. The normal answer is to bleed the brakes, that takes 3 special things: a bleed screw, 2 syringes, and brake fluid.
You basically pump brake fluid between the syringes, attaching the bottom syringe to the brake caliper via a bleed screw. Well.. no bleed screw, so I can’t do a real bleed.
But I do have more fuild (Johnson’s Baby Oil, I shit you not), so now I just need a syringe. The CVS gave me one but it’s too big. Going out now to see if I can find a smaller one…
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