Mechanical
Had every intention of riding to Manor and points east. My bicycle had other ideas. Right crank arm decided to come loose. Discretion being the better part valor…and not wanting to call my wife for a rescue…I decided to turn back home. Got progressively worse. Good decision.
A little perplexing and annoying. Haven’t been on my road bike for a month. It’s just been sitting in the garage. Wonder if the recent cool temperatures had anything to do with it.
So instead of 50 or 60 miles, I got 14.5. Meh.
You scared the sun away
I know I saw the sun earlier. Wasn’t my imagination. I guess my enthusiasm to get out scared it away. Cool, gray, dreary day.
I’ll take a cool, gray, dreary day over sitting in the hospital any time. Keep riding Tim.
yeah…
…how goes it by the way?
I learned to never use any oil, grease or thread treatment on my crank bolts. (I guess I’m mentally assuming you were using square taper). I was fortunate late one night while pedaling with one foot (grateful for SPDs) to come across a guy unloading bikes from his car who had the required 15mm narrow wall socket.
grease shouldn’t affect how the bolt holds…that’s what so perplexing (and yes I have square taper spindle)
I think because the force application of the crank on the spindle is perpendicular to the bolt (opposite of like spoke threads) and it is subjected to a lot of flex etc. it can work loose. There was a big discussion on some cycling forum a couple of years ago. Almost everyone was saying to grease all bike threads EXCEPT crank bolts.
I found the same discussions via Google search. Interesting. I’ve always greased my crank bolts (and nuts). Never had an issue before this.
But in the interest of experimenting, I disassembled this morning, cleaned the grease off the threads and re-inserted with some teflon tape. A mechanic I trust once recommended this.
Fortunately, both the spindle and the crank holes don’t show much wear. Caught it just in time.