I had quite an eventful ride into work today.
It was only my second commute since returning to the Commencal “winter bike“. I was about a mile from home and queuing in a line of traffic waiting to cross a busy (but small) roundabout. Soon enough my turn came and I set off, accelerating hard to get across the gap to the centre of the roundabout.
Snap! On a downstroke, something in the crank gave and my left foot continued on through the expected bottom of the stroke and hit the ground. Somehow I managed to stay upright, not get run over and limp the bike over to the footpath to inspect what had gone wrong.
Crank Arm with Stripped Threads
Very quickly I determined that I’d pulled the left pedal right out of the crank. The giveaway was the left pedal being missing from the crank arm, where it should have been, and being attached to my shoe instead, where it shouldn’t have been. I tried to reattach the pedal, but I’d stripped some, if not all, of the threads off the crank arm and it wouldn’t screw back in. I had to return home again, swap to the BeOne and restart my journey.
But the fun wasn’t to end there.
A few weeks ago I had a near miss with a Volvo XC-90 as it pulled into the bus lane (naughty) on the Antrim Road without looking (naughty). The same thing happened today again, but it wasn’t as bad as (a) it was a much smaller vehicle, and (b) it didn’t get close enough to require punching. I think the passenger saw me, and also if she hadn’t I think there would have been an actual collision.
Was that it? No.
Pedestrians this time. Two sets of two, ambling across four lanes of traffic, talking and looking the wrong way. A shout of “HEADS UP!” alerted the first bunch to their impending doom, and to their credit they did apologise and get out of the way. But the second group didn’t alter course at all and I was forced to brake and swerve (and swear) to avoid them. Idiots.
Hopefully the journey home will be less interesting.
You’re lucky you don’t have to negotiate the various ‘cycle paths’ (dubious) around the Obel construction site. Not only do some of the contractors treat the cycle paths as a convenient spot to dump the white van for the day but their workers seem to think its good craic to play chicken with cyclists trying to negotiate what remains of the designated path!
I don’t have to, but if I take the NCN93 cycle path (along the M5) into the city and then on to east Belfast, as I often do, I end up passing through the Obel site and know exactly what you mean. I’ll just stay on the road to avoid it.
Pedestrians, cars … All put there by the good Lord Himself to test us cyclists!
Glad you made it home safe.