Crows

            Late Sunday afternoon I started out for my bike ride but only made it a short distance up O’Hara before my right front brake pad was rubbing against the rim again. I dragged my bike back home and dug through my drawer to find a wrench that would fit the nut at the back of the brakes so I could loosen it, balance them and tighten it as much as possible. It took a 10 mm wrench and it seemed to fix the problem, but I decided that a number ten wrench would be a good thing to carry around on my rides along with the ratchet for my wheels and the Allen key for my handlebars.

            There was mostly a grey sky but it wasn’t dark and the temperature was pleasant. I went back up to Parkview Hills, taking O’Connor to Bermondsey, heading northwest, curving north until Sunrise Avenue and then east. About halfway back to O’Connor I saw some crows in a tree and so I stopped to try to photograph them, but they were too far up for any chance of a nice shot. One of them was at the very topmost branch and sometimes another would land there too but it seemed like awkward positioning. I think the crows were hanging around there because a little further down the street was some road kill and they were waiting for sundown on Sunrise so they could chow down.

            When I got back on my bike the front right brake pad had once again started rubbing against the rim. I dug the wrench out of my backpack and readjusted them, and then I continued on Sunrise to Hobson and turned left. I followed that to its dead end and then my brakes began to misbehave again. I stopped at the curb and while I was using the wrench I heard a horn beeping behind me. I turned and saw a van and the driver wanted to park where I was standing. I looked at him and threw up my hands in a “what the fuck?” gesture. There was no sign saying it was his parking space, I wasn’t blocking a driveway and it certainly wasn’t private property, so I had just as much right to park in that spot as he did. He parked his van in front of me.

            I rode back to Sunrise and followed it back to O’Connor and then south. I had to stop above St Clair for another session with the wrench. A little later at around Pape and Danforth I had to do it one more time. I’d noticed that the right pad was the one that kept edging back to squeak against my rim, so this time I tried pushing the left pad all the way to the rim and then tightened the nut. After that it was balanced again and stayed that way all the way home.