Maintenance Day!

Poor Machsie has needed some TLC for over a week now, since being ridden in the rain and mud and sand in Boulder two Mondays ago, but having my 29er as a backup made it possible to procrastinate on the maintenance.  So today I finally buckled down, watched a quick YouTube video on the procedure to refresh my memory, assembled my tools and got to work.
First, some scrubbing.  Machsie was caked with trail debris from Peaceful Valley, so a thorough chain bath was in order.  I adore the Park Tool cleaner for this job:

easy as pie

Next, it wasfinally time to deal with the bit of rubber frame protection on the drive side seat stay, which had started coming off a while ago and was being held on (not terribly effectively) with electrical tape:

no bueno

This required pulling off the frame tape that was protecting the rest of the stay, which was unfortunate because that stuff is pricey.  After scrubbing and drying, the rubber piece was ready to be slathered with Shoe Goo (the adhesive of choice for bike frame purposes, according to Mojo Wheels) and stuck back on.  Easy enough:

Then, since I had everything nice and clean and exposed, like a patient prepped for a vasectomy, I went ahead and applied additional frame tape to areas that seemed to be showing some wear, as well as a bit of black nail polish for aesthetic effect:

scandalous, like an upskirt photo

Time to take a break and indulge in a beer while the polish dried.
Then, on to brakes!
After prior experience with dropping and/or misplacing critical hardware, I thought ahead this time and laid a light-colored towel under the bike stand before starting (naturally, once I took this precaution, I didn't drop anything).  The whole procedure is really straightforward, just messy, since the Shimano mineral oil seems to magically get everywhere.  I started with the front, because why not.  Caliper off, check.  Pads out, check.  Pistons pushed in, check.  Bleed block inserted, check.  And so forth:

Under Ellie's diligent supervision, there were no problems:

On to the rear! As you can see, I'm using the highly advanced "hang a bucket from the handlebar and let the old fluid drain into it" technique, because I didn't feel like hunting down a special Shimano threaded reservoir funnel, and also because Mike failed to tell me that he had previously jury-rigged a device for bleeding XT brakes ("just watch a YouTube video and you'll be fine" were his exact words).

High-tech

Things went smoothly again until it was time to adjust the pads by doing the wheel spin-brake-tighter caliper bolts maneuver, when the brake failed to stop the wheel's motion and, in fact, did little to slow it. I quickly went through the procedure again, getting a couple more small air bubbles to come up through the reservoir.  Same story: no stopping.  So I took a closer look at the brake pads themselves:

Oops.

Yeah, they're probably done.  Quick trip to East Fork Bikes on Stella Seahawk, my intrepid sticker-festooned cruiser, and I was back in business!

Just in time for Pocatello Pioneers practice!  To prepare for the race on Saturday, which will take place at a ski resort near Salt Lake City and involves lots of switchbacks up and down the face of a ski run, we rode a trail that takes us up a jeep road and then traverses over to the top of a hill way west of the city, and drops us down a bunch of tight, loose switchbacks.  I was sweeping towards the back of the group, so I only got a shot of the last two kids and the other coaches, Dan and Troy.

We finished up right as the sun went down, and everyone is looking forward to throwing down in a couple of days!