One of the exercise I’d heard that I should have been doing for increasing muscle on my operated leg was one legged spinning drills on the bike. I’d also heard about bikers in training doing them to learn how to get the proper spin on the pedals instead of just mashing down on the pedals.
I’ve never done them and really don’t have any plans of purposefully doing them. Until last night.
I hit Cedarville last night with the intention of getting a quick ride in and checking out the new chain and cassette combo. They worked good. No skipping.
I’m 3.5 miles into my ride when all of sudden I’ve got no tension on my left leg and out of the corner of my eye I see the bolt that holds the crank onto the bottom bracket shooting off into the woods. I lock up and stop as quickly as possible so I can retrieve that bolt. Fifteen minutes of searching through the newly fallen leaves and no damn bolt. Shit. My own dumb fault. After taking the bottom bracket off a few days ago I never torqued that crank back on. It's not so bad I thought, I've got clipless shoes. I'll just make it out to the camping area and ride back from there with one crank. Oh, my god. Talk about hamstring cramping. I had been meaning to give the operated leg more ham exercises but this was kinda extreme.
I called my LBS from the park to see if they would carry the bolt. The sales guy said they would probly have to order it. More icing on the cake. I went ahead and stopped by to get the bolt ordered and pickup my special ordered rear hanger for the 26". I could at least ride that while waiting for the bolt.
The guys in there still know me as the "29er" guy, but now I'm also the hamburger cooker from the SM100. The head mechanic, Chris found the bolt in stock that I needed. Good now atleast I could ride tomowrow. I wasn't looking forward to seeing what they wanted for that stupid little bolt. Chris told me to hang on minute and went scrounging through some drawers for a different bolt. I thought maybe he was looking for a different color that matched my bike. Nope, he found a used one that he just gave to me for free.
It struck me as funny that this happened to me at this time. A forum that I frequent just had a post on "how much are you willing to pay extra for parts from your LBS". This is one of the reasons I will spend a little bit more there than getting stuff online. They could of just sold me the new bolt and I'd been happy that they just had it in stock. True, I could have bought a new one cheaper online but the "headache" factor isn't worth the little bit of money I could have saved, especially if you figure the $4+ shipping it probly would have cost.
seeya
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2 comments:
Always support your LBS! I learned that long ago! I have had reams of advice on how to keep my ol' cheapie in good riding condition and they've given me discounts on parts to keep me from having to settle for oh, an example, they discounted my Bontrager clipped pedals to the same price as the cheaper plastic ones. This was a 30% discount! Consequently I refer them as much business as I can! Sorry to hear about the one legged pedaling! That must've sucked! Oh well, keep riding Tom and I will as well! Keep the rubber side down and the helmet out of the dirt and everything else just takes care of itself!
Your lucky if you've got a good LBS. They're hard to find.
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