Thanks for the suggestions, even the more expensive monetary one. A nickel was the largest coin I had in my pocket at the time.
I was literally on my ride when I wrote (still am, at a coffee stop in South Haven), so hopefully you'll understand that details were kept to a minimum. The bolt and nut are meant for the seatpost binder. I doubt a Campy style binder bolt will work (though I have a couple to try back at home). The bolt itself is your normal diameter thing, while the Campy thing is much larger diameter. Frame surgery not gonna happen.
While I ride back to the beach house I'll leave you with a puzzle too solve. I think I know why it happened, but you get to speculate wildly. I test rode the bike before coming up. Everything was fine. When I set out on my ride this morning I heard this horrible grinding from down by the bottom bracket. "Oh no, that doesn't sound good at all!" I stopped and investigated a little. If I turned the crank, it made the sound once per cycle, no matter if I spun the crank forward or backward. I peeked they the bb shell window and was reminded that I have a Tange Seiki sealed bottom bracket, so that wasn't likely to be the cause. It took a minute to figure out what the problem was. The fix was pretty trivial.
So, two questions for the assembled experts. One, what was the problem? Two, what caused it? Hint: I use a Saris Bones rack. The first to answer
both questions correctly will get a small bike-related gift in the mail.
