SRAM for President!!

While there are many stories regarding the Leadville trip still in the vault..this one is a "must hear". The night before I was to meet the crew in Jackson, Ms to begin our journey, I was packing up a few things and doing exactly what you shouldn't do to your bike before a big event....check it over, just one more time. I did absolutely nothing to it, except literally look it over and squeeze the rear brake...dead. Lever squeezed all the way to bar. For those that don't know, this is bad..especially on a hydraulic brake. I looked at the clock saw it was 30 minutes till closing time at the shop, packed up and headed there. Due to a "one in a million wreck" in the 1 mile between my house and the shop i arrived with 15 minutes to go. No worries i can bleed brakes that fast, maybe. Luckily i did and everything was right and I packed up and went on my merry way....not so much. I did get the brakes bled in time, but 5 minutes after i was bragging about my work, squeezed the lever and it's dead again. A few curses were thrown out, but i decided to "run what i brung", i can do Leadville with just a front brake....no worries. In the words of my pal Tagg, "No one ever stands on the podium and thanks a brake sponsor." Good point Tagg. Luckily I caught myself before this stupid thought grew to an even larger mistake which would of course left me in a "hail marry" attempt and utterly out of control headed down Powerline. There were a few more attempts made that night to remedy the situation, but nothing stuck. Broken, but not beaten I stripped the Cannondale of it's BB7 in the event that i wouldn't be able to fix the Elixir prior to race day.
Fast forward two days: We arrived at Wizzers house in Denver, caught some shut eye, then awoke to realize I still had a nasty brake situation going on. Now let me say this, I know that the BB7 would have worked great, fine, no problems...but after going hydraulic, you don't go back...there in lies the problem. I had to fix this prior to race day. We tried once more to bleed, even reading the instructions this time....but once again they were fine for five minutes then, dead. In a last ditch effort I decided to call SRAM, they have an amazing Customer Service dept. as well as an even better warrenty policy. Putting on my best, "Daddy I have a flat and I can't fix it," voice I dialed up SRAM. Ten minutes later, there was a new Elixir on it's way to a shop close to our house in Frisco...no questions asked. I'm sure there are numerous companies that would do this and ensure that the product would be "over-nighted" for the customer to make the race-day cut toff...or are there? I know SRAM is one of them.

But here's the rest of the story: The brake didn't arrive. We woke Friday morning, headed to Leadville to pick up our goodies and see all the hoopla about Mr. Armstrong and were going to stop at the shop on the way back and pick up the brake. No dice. Evidently the "Big Brown" shipping company was late that day and missed the store closing, therefore, no brake. BOO!!! What can brown do for me? GET THERE ON TIME!!!!!! All hope wasn't lost thanks to the owner of Gravitee, the bike shop. Call it what you want, luck, karma..whatever...but the owner of the shop actually lived in the apartment that was attached to our condo in Frisco...ya, small world. After hearing my problem, he in that cool, Colorado way said, "No worries bro, take mine." Life saver. He had a 2009 Giant Anthem in the garage where we were staying that had some Hayes Stokers on it...luckily it fit and I was able to race with two functioning hydraulic brakes. The brakes did eventually show up on Monday, picked them up, slapped them on, and spent another week riding Crested Butte and Durango with no problems. Moral of the story, BUY SRAM....and don't forget the kindness of strangers. Pay it forward.