Ride into work for Wednesday, 16 November
Today was not a good day.
I put on my gaiters and reflective anklebands as it was raining outside. When I got to the end of the street, I realised I hadn't put on my rain pants. So, I pulled over and just about managed to squeeze my winter boots through the rain pants and get them on. Riding on, I was being hit by winds that constantly changed direction from sidewind to headwind (you will note, no mention of "tailwind"). As a result, the rain got pretty much everywhere, and I resigned myself to a pretty sucky commute.
Then, about halfway there, setting off from a traffic light, I heard a sudden "crunch" noise and felt my right foot suddenly sag. I managed to make the next turn onto a residential street, stopped, and found the axle in the pedal had snapped. I tried pedalling for a distance pushing inwards with my right foot, but that just didn't work as the pedal kept slipping out from under my boot. I then tried wrapping some bits of paper around the remains of the axle and stuffed the pedal back on to see if the friction would do the trick; unfortunately not. So, for the last half of the commute, I had to ride with a 5cm stub of axle instead of a pedal. I did an on-the-fly rejig of the commute so I would be going either flat or downhill most of the way, and managed to get in without any major problems, although my left leg got a real workout.
I picked up a Park Tool RW-3 mini pedal wrench and a cheap set of platform pedals from MEC at lunchtime. The RW-3 is definitely an emergency only tool - because it's so short there's next to no leverage, I ended up taking some corrugated cardboard and folding it over a couple of times and even then it felt like the wrench was going to leave a permanent mark. Still, at least the bike's rideable now.
I also picked up the 27" tyres for the new bike. It's going to be interesting getting them home, I can't find the velcro strap I was going to use to tie them down with...
Distance logged: 11.206km
Time: 35:03
Average speed: 18.9km/hr
Max speed: 54.1 km/hr
Temperature: 5C, raining, windy
Cumulative distance: 6274.385km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.23
Monthly distance: 281.276km
Monthly cost per km: $0.40
I put on my gaiters and reflective anklebands as it was raining outside. When I got to the end of the street, I realised I hadn't put on my rain pants. So, I pulled over and just about managed to squeeze my winter boots through the rain pants and get them on. Riding on, I was being hit by winds that constantly changed direction from sidewind to headwind (you will note, no mention of "tailwind"). As a result, the rain got pretty much everywhere, and I resigned myself to a pretty sucky commute.
Then, about halfway there, setting off from a traffic light, I heard a sudden "crunch" noise and felt my right foot suddenly sag. I managed to make the next turn onto a residential street, stopped, and found the axle in the pedal had snapped. I tried pedalling for a distance pushing inwards with my right foot, but that just didn't work as the pedal kept slipping out from under my boot. I then tried wrapping some bits of paper around the remains of the axle and stuffed the pedal back on to see if the friction would do the trick; unfortunately not. So, for the last half of the commute, I had to ride with a 5cm stub of axle instead of a pedal. I did an on-the-fly rejig of the commute so I would be going either flat or downhill most of the way, and managed to get in without any major problems, although my left leg got a real workout.
I picked up a Park Tool RW-3 mini pedal wrench and a cheap set of platform pedals from MEC at lunchtime. The RW-3 is definitely an emergency only tool - because it's so short there's next to no leverage, I ended up taking some corrugated cardboard and folding it over a couple of times and even then it felt like the wrench was going to leave a permanent mark. Still, at least the bike's rideable now.
I also picked up the 27" tyres for the new bike. It's going to be interesting getting them home, I can't find the velcro strap I was going to use to tie them down with...
Distance logged: 11.206km
Time: 35:03
Average speed: 18.9km/hr
Max speed: 54.1 km/hr
Temperature: 5C, raining, windy
Cumulative distance: 6274.385km
Cumulative cost per km: $0.23
Monthly distance: 281.276km
Monthly cost per km: $0.40
posted by steve at 11/16/2005 12:41:00 pm
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