I now have a sloppy rear brake to diagnose and fix I have to push the brake lever back a little after using it, it doesn't spring completely back by itself.

Actually, I'm pretty sure of the problem there, I just don't want to fix it Part of it is I have cable housing running the whole way to weatherproof it, which means the cable+housing is ziptied to the frame instead of running through cable stops. I think that makes the rear brake a bit spongy. The other part is that the one brake arm is just getting a bit sloppy from age. It's a standard mtb v-brake, and the long metal spring won't stay completely put in its groove, but sort of slides into the gap next to it, which makes the brake arm sluggish and slow to return.

The joys of riding old bikes. Am now perusing a local forum looking for used v-brakes...

Re: strange pings. I took me months of fretting about the regular pinging sound I heard whenever I rode in a certain gear, before I noticed that my foot was hitting the end of the front derailleur wire (*ping!* *ping!*) with every revolution...