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Maybe not every ride is a good ride

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Fifty Plus (50+) Share the victories, challenges, successes and special concerns of bicyclists 50 and older. Especially useful for those entering or reentering bicycling.

Maybe not every ride is a good ride

Old 04-24-22, 03:34 PM
  #1  
gthomson
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Maybe not every ride is a good ride

Go ahead and grab yourself a nice cheese and please forgive me for I'm about to start whining. Today was supposed to be a good day because I was due for a little "me" time to start doing some work on my bikes and then go for a nice ride while the weather was pleasant. I don't have a ton of bikes but most are older and they all need some type of work so I started with my favourite bike - my vintage 80's Peugeot which is really starting to show wear on the finish. Cleaned up the rust starting to spread under the cable housing going over the top bar and then some touch up paint. Not going to raise the value of the bike but at a distance, looks OK. One job done.

Pulled out my newer Cannondale road bike which I haven't ridden since last fall and noticed a bit of rusting on the chain. Ok, will get that cleaned off and then oil the chain after I take it for a quick test ride. Hmmm, doesn't sound good, inner tubes sound all dried out and making creaking noises while riding and shifting is really rough. Save this for another day.

Let's take a break from bike work and go for a little ride on one of the bikes which is usually a steady Freddy - the 1990's Peugeot Mtn bike which I recently had the cassette and chain replaced. Riding along and feeling good - I think I really want to convert this bike into a drop bar conversion I like it so much and then bang! One of the pedals breaks off. WTF? I have no tools so can't get it back in and it looks threaded. I had just replaced the pedals recently with some flat pedals do did I screw up? add this to the Dumbest maintenance mistake made thread?

Manage to limp to a bike shop with one pedal and bless their hearts because I didn't bring my wallet, they managed to get the pedal back on but confirmed, the crank arm is toast. He said, I'll get you home but it's done. The shop was a high end road bike shop so he was nice enough to ask if I wanted him to try and order a replacement arm but i knew he wasn't interested in fixing an old man's mtn bike.

thanks for reading, I'm a bit down on myself and wish the day could have been better but I guess just another day at the office when it comes to owning older bikes.

I hope your day was better
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Old 04-24-22, 05:25 PM
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big john
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Tomorrow's another day, right? A pedal coming off can be quite dangerous, I'm glad you didn't get hurt. I've had pedals snap off twice and had one pedal body unscrew from the spindle while riding.
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Old 04-24-22, 05:54 PM
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Old 04-24-22, 06:09 PM
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gthomson
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Originally Posted by big john
Tomorrow's another day, right? A pedal coming off can be quite dangerous, I'm glad you didn't get hurt. I've had pedals snap off twice and had one pedal body unscrew from the spindle while riding.
Yup, and hopefully better than today. The work week will take precedent so the bike woes will have to wait until next weekend but yes, got lucky that the broken pedal didn't cause an accident. I had lifted the front of the bike slightly to jump over a curb and coming down it broke off so I was lucky.
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Old 04-24-22, 06:38 PM
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Originally Posted by gthomson
Yup, and hopefully better than today. The work week will take precedent so the bike woes will have to wait until next weekend but yes, got lucky that the broken pedal didn't cause an accident. I had lifted the front of the bike slightly to jump over a curb and coming down it broke off so I was lucky.
I was on a mountain bike trail with small jumps and I was following a kid who was about 300 pounds. When he landed from a jump the crank spindle snapped off and he took quite a tumble. He was unhurt and said he had broken lots of parts.

A friend who raced cat3 at 265 pounds snapped a crankarm riding near home.
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Old 04-24-22, 07:20 PM
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Kai Winters
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whew...lots of bikes that see little maintenance. glad it worked out but hopefully a lesson learned.
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Old 04-24-22, 07:45 PM
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yeah more bikes = more tasks. I remember last year when I developed a new chain cleaning procedure, I had to go thru all 3 of my bikes. better to plan ahead than get caught off guard. but I'll bet many of us have had epic bad bike days. I know I have. my worst was driving 2 hours then having my rear tire bead break causing 2 flats. only got a cpl miles ridden & almost got stranded out in the dark at the end of a winter's day, in the forest. only good thing was, I wasn't far from my car. but then drove 2 hrs home. so 4 hrs in the car for maybe 30 minutes of riding? oh well, right?

thank you for sharing

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Old 04-24-22, 11:07 PM
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I've broken enough pedals and cranks to know... you just replace them with age even though they look fine.
I've never broken a stem or handlebar... same plan, less aging time.
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Old 04-25-22, 12:25 AM
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Originally Posted by DiabloScott

I've broken enough pedals and cranks to know... you just replace them with age even though they look fine.
I've never broken a stem or handlebar... same plan, less aging time.
Yup. Replace key parts before they break, especially the ones that only break while riding or break in a way that is unacceptable. I retired my favorite bend TTT bars and stem off my Mooney simply because they had 25,000(?) miles and had been on the bike for several crashes. (Absolutely gorgeous Superleggeros with beautiful leather tape.)

Speaking of cranks; I've watched two cranks break from the front row seat of the rider on his wheel in races. Both hard crashes, I squeaked around both. Broke mine as I came out of the saddle for the last few pedal strokes of a ride. Foot and pedal went straight to the road. I sat down, came to a stop, then clomped around looking for the pedal that just broke off. "Oh yeah! It's still on my foot!" Cool part - I was a mile from my destination (with friends and cars) and it was al downhill.

I've never broken a pedal catastrophically. I've killed many Leotard platforms, but they were all long, slow deaths; the construction with the swaged rattrap plates simply not being up to the toestraps being pulled hard enough to go up walls in gears line 42-17. (Life of a fix gear pedal ridden by me in Seattle.) For clipless I've been riding Performance (Wellgo?) LOOK compatibles and just replacing them when either maintenance is needed or I have lost faith in them.
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Old 04-25-22, 06:59 AM
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I think the forum needs to get the WOW emoji for some of these pictures and stories instead of just a like. I didn't know breaking cranks or pedals was somewhat common!

rumrunn6, that must definitely have been a day you thought, not a good day for riding.
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Old 05-02-22, 09:09 AM
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Fredo76
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Breaking cranks and pedals didn't used to be common...
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Old 05-02-22, 09:27 AM
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If I had that many bikes in a state of decline I would look to consolidate. It's better to have one decent bike than half a dozen with rideability issues.
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