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I owned a lovely set of red Formula R1 brakes since 2010. They went onto my singlespeed Niner Air9 Carbon, moved to my black 44 Kid Dangerous in 2013, and then to my 44 Marauder in 2017; fourteen years of service and still working perfectly. It was time to treat the Marauder to a new set of brakes. I was just waiting for a worthy replacement to appear on the market. This happened recently with Hope’s release of the XCR brakes in anodized colors and the option of two, or four-piston calipers. Hope is essentially the only manufacturer that still offers disc brakes in a variety of colors. The XCR with E4 calipers were the brakes I was waiting for.

Just about when the pandemic started, our two cats were diagnosed with chronic kidney disease. The disease was already advanced in one of the two girls. She lived longer than the vets had given her but passed away two years ago. Her sister, now 19 years old, is hanging in there. She is only still around because we are doing everything to give her the best quality of life for the time she still wants to soldier on. Care-taking, whether it is for an elderly parent, a disabled child, or in our case, aging cats with a progressing chronic disease, requires a big part of one’s time. My riding has dropped from a peak of 8’700 km in 2018 to 3’000 km last year. Because of that, a couple of my bikes have not put on more miles. Since I had to be at home a lot for caretaking, I had time to take care of my dormant bike fleet. I replaced and updated components, instead of riding and replacing my bikes as I normally would.

Huh? Another set of hoops? Didn't the bike already get new ones in November? Yes, but they didn't work well with the tires I wanted to use on the MGX12. So, I spent a week testing between the holidays and concluded that I needed to build a new set of wheels with Light Bicycle AR25 low-profile rims. The new wheels:

• Light Bicycle AR25 rims, paintless UD carbon, 28H, drain holes, laser engraving
• Light Bicycle 25mm rim tape
• Sapim CX-Ray spokes
• Red aluminum nipples
• Red tubeless valves
• Hope Pro 5 Centerlock front hub, 28H, 100x12mm, red
• Hope Pro 5 Centerlock rear hub, 28H, 142x12mm, XDR, red
• Hope Centerlock lockrings, red
• Bucklos RT-MT760 Centerlock rotors, 160mm
• SRAM XPLR XG-1251 cassette, 10-44T
• René Herse Antelope Hill 700C x 55 TC tires, standard casing, tan sidewalls
• Orange Seal regular sealant

When I first got into cycling in the mid-80s, entry-, mid-level, and high-end bikes were not tremendously far apart. Mountain bikes had no suspension, and frames were made from steel or aluminum. Groupsets were the primary difference between bikes. An entry-level bike had Shimano LX, a mid-level bike was equipped with DX, and a top-of-the-line bike came with XT. I started on an entry-level bike, moved to a mid-level Specialized Stumpjumper, and soon rode a World-Cup-level Muddy Fox with a full Shimano XT groupset. Even seat posts were part of such groupsets back then. XT came with a nice black steel seat post. You read that right: a seat post made out of steel. A few years later, I spent a small fortune owning a Merlin Titanium with XTR derailleurs and many boutique components. For much of my cycling career, I bought or built nice bikes that cost a lot. They were never outrageously expensive, but more than I needed.

On the weekend of January 13th and 14th, snow covered the trails almost to my house. I did a 3-hour ride across the Bözingenberg on Saturday, the 13th, and a 4-hour loop across Plagne and the Stierenberg on Sunday, the 14th. Warm weather and rain during the week pushed the snowline up several hundred meters. Luckily, the mercury dropped below zero on Friday and remained there for the weekend.