Stranded near Portland

Hello everybody,

Im stranded outside of Portland. My fork seals are blown causing my brakes to fail excuse the fork fluid dripped down and my front brake lever has become extremely squishy.needless to say my front brakes are at about 20%. It’s raining a lot and I’m stuck in a campground. Does anybody have any suggestion or can offer help. Thanks

my number is 646-573-3654

 

Suggestion: stay put until the problem is resolved. Or call an Uber and go get a hotel room if being outdoors is an issue, you can disable and retrieve the bike later.

 

Thanks to the many thing I have learned on this forum the problem has been resolved and the bike is up and running. The adventure continues.

 

How was the problem resolved? Was the CAUSE of the soft brake lever determined (it doesn't "just happen", air must have gotten in there somehow........).

 

I did the controversial zip tie trick to the brake lever and it ended up working better than before. The front brakes were never great to begin with and I tried like hell to bleed all the air out of there. Maybe with all this riding the air finally loosened up and zip tying the lever to the handlebar in the squeezed position was just what I needed. Fork seals were never blown.

 

Well... Damn what is the contraversial ziptie trick?

On an aside... I spoke to a rider the other day who NEVER uses his front brakes for fear of ... Something or other.
Maybe a bicycle to motorcycle anguish.
Not sure about his stopping ability but to each their own I guess.

 

Zip-tie the brakelever 'on' and leave overnight or more. It's considered another way to bleed brakes by allowing any trapped air ro escape up the
top. I think it does works, contraversially, I also tap the hoses along their length too, maybe that helps but who knows without see-through hoses.

 

My guess is the brake MC piston was stuck in the "pressed" position, mimicing a condition where the brakes feel "soft" or you can easily pull the handle in with no "pop-back".

This has happened to me before even after honing out the inside. I find that a quick shot of WD40 will loosen the sticky piston and any corrosion or whatever other debris caused the issue will get flushed out promptly. Usually do it once per season now.

 

That’s exactly what I did.