Tundra_Man 

Yesterday I took the MUP for the first time in a month since the flood. The river is still above flood stage, but had finally lowered enough that over the weekend they opened up the parks along my route. There were still about a half dozen spots where the river was still coming up over the trail and I had to ride through water. There was one spot that was still way too deep to ride through, so I had to detour around that area.

On my way home, I noticed the river was higher than it was in the morning, and the areas where I rode through water were deeper. The snows from last week's blizzard are melting and they're expecting the river to crest again this coming weekend. The city had already started shutting the parks back down as it won't be long before they're back to being underwater.

So this morning I went back to the longer, hillier road route I've been taking instead of the MUP. Traffic seemed busier in some areas, but lighter in others so I guess it balanced out. Weather was beautiful at 40F, sunny and a light headwind.

Over the weekend I had noticed a little "thud" in my left foot as it came over the top of the pedal stroke. It started almost imperceptibly and slowly grew as I rode. I thought perhaps my pedal was loose or maybe the cleat in my shoe was starting to get too much play. When I got home I inspected things and found that the entire crank arm was loose and coming off the spindle. I grabbed an allen wrench and tightened it back down. I figured that would fix it.

Yesterday on the way home from work I felt it again, and by the time I got home the pedal end of the crank would move a good 1/2". The bolt had come loose again. I re-tightened it, but this time gave it everything I could muster. I also threw that big allen wrench in my bag in case it works loose again on the road. Not sure why this suddenly started happening? I don't think the bolt is stripped as the amount of force I used to tighten it surely would have revealed if that was a problem.