There are a lot of bolts on my bike and they're always yearning to be free.
Last week it was a brake lever than went from a bit wiggly to all off in two rides. Tonight, during my the last scheduled commute for 2013 [1], my left shoe got locked into the pedal. Bit of a nuisance as I was trying to put that foot down; happily I could glide far enough to put the right shoe down. When I got home I undid the shoe, then took bike and shoe down for surgery.
Turns out a bolt had fallen out, so the shoe couldn't torque the cleat. I'm not quite sure how I wiggled the shoe off the remaining bolt, but the secret to removing a shoe-less cleat is to drop the pedal spring tension. It comes out easily by pliers.
Ok universe, I get it. I need to do something different. I've created a task for April 2014 to tighten bike AND shoe bolts, I'll do that every 8 weeks or so.
You should too.
[1] In December I go to CrossFit 3/x week because non-slip roads are unpredictable through March. I used to commute year round, but that was pre-kids.
Nice to know I'm not the only one who's lost 1 cleat bolt and suffered failure to release. I've done it twice (same shoe/cleat). I vowed to tighten bolts regularly. Yeah, right. We need smart bolts that stay tight till we ask them to release. More likely to happen than smart people who keep tightening.
ReplyDeleteHi Barry! I scheduled a todo item to tighten 'em, i'll just do it every few months...
ReplyDelete