Monday, September 13, 2010

Nick, Justin, Me, my P3 and a hacksaw!


Caution, some readers may find the following graphic details disturbing.

Ok, so it all started out well and with the best of intentions.

It’s been two weeks since Ironman Louisville and I was ready for a good brick workout and really looking forward to getting out for a good ride with the guys. Nick and Justin are in the thick of their Miami 70.3 training and I was really looking forward to getting out with them after my rest week. I didn’t have a whole lot to do the bike, it was pretty much ready to go from Louisville and the only thing missing was the pedals.

During recovery week, I needed something to do, so I decided to build the P2 back up. I had stripped it down for a thorough cleaning and to touch up a few stone chips. I had enough spare parts around and since I’m thinking of selling it to buy a power meter, I thought it would be better to have it ready to test ride in case I found a buyer. Once I had it ready to go, I had to move the pedals over off the P3, as the only thing I didn’t have was a spare set of pedals. I rode the P2 last week and everything was great.

So Saturday morning, I took the pedals off the P2 and went to put them in the P3 to get ready to ride. I grabbed one of the pedals, bent down and started to thread it into the crank arm, it’s not catching. That’s strange, I try the other side, same thing, I can’t get either side to thread in. OK, that’s weird I tell myself. I double check to make sure I’m trying the pedal on the correct side and I orient the pedals to the crank arms as I would see them from the perspective of clipping in and I have them right. I try again, can’t get either one to start. OK, I think to myself, I have them on the correct side, but maybe I have the right hand/left hand threads mixed up. I look it up in the book and check to make sure I’m turning them the right way, yes I am. Still won’t catch?

What the hell? Now I’m really starting to sweat, we’re riding at 11:00 and I really want to ride today and its 10:55, they’re expecting me at 11:00. I call Nick “You’re not going to believe this” I tell him, “I can’t get my pedals on” “What? Nick says, I tell him again, “Impossible, we’ll be there in 5 minutes” he says and hangs up. Now I’m really freaking out, the last thing I want to do is hold these guys up, it’s an absolutely beautiful day and I know how important it is for them to get their ride in and I really want to ride!

I run down to the basement and grab an old set of Time pedals, I run back upstairs and try them. I can’t get them started either! I screw them into the crank arm backwards to make sure they’re good, no problem. But unfortunately they won’t go through far enough to reach the outboard threads. Try to screw the Look pedals in the same way, they’re too short too. Oh shit, now what? I check my tap and die set and don’t have anything close to that size, forget about that idea. What now? I think to myself, well they just came off the P2 crank, right, so I’ll put them back on. I run down to the basement and, no problem, they thread right in. OK, now I’ll swap the entire crank so I can ride. The chain will be too short, but I’ll stay out of those gears. I pull the crank off the P2 and run with it back upstairs to the garage. Pull the FSA crank out of the P3 and push the spindle of the P2 crank into the bottom bracket. Not the best set up, but at least I can ride.

Nick and Justin arrive at the open garage door and stand there and look at the mess I’ve created all over the floor of the garage. Tools and parts are everywhere. I explain again to Nick again what’s going on. “Can’t happen” he says as he picks up one of the pedals and tries it in the crank arm, it’s going on, I can’t believe it. I look at it and then at Nick with disbelief. “You must have had them on the wrong way”, he says.” I didn’t, I swear”, I say as I try to defend myself from looking like a complete idiot! He tries the other side and gets it threaded on as well. Well, now I’m relieved, I really was hoping there wasn’t anything wrong with my nice FSA carbon crank. Believe me, I used to race cars and I’ve taken apart and put things much more complex back together properly.

Alright, with the pedals back on the crank, let’s put the crank back on the P3 and get out of here. I start to unwind the crank arm off the older FSA crank and it gets about halfway and stops. What now! I keep turning and it’s not moving. It looks like in my haste to get the crank on, I installed the left side arm one spline off and it’s stuck. What am I going to do now, it won’t come off and it won’t go on. There is a space of about 10mm between the crank arm and the bottom bracket. We try to screw it on and off and it’s not going anywhere. I’m going to get a hacksaw I announce, it’s the only way to get it off.

Nick and Justin look at me like I’ve totally lost my mind. “What other choice do we have” I say? Nick tries to move it with a screw driver, but it’s not budging. I run to the basement and grab a hacksaw. I carefully start cutting through the spindle. Poor Justin is looking at the whole scene like he’s come across a bad car accident. “I never seen anything like this” he says. Nick and I take turns braking hacksaw blades and after about 10 minutes, we finally make it through. We tap it out and jam the FSA crank, with the pedals attached, back in. Operation complete.
I take a deep breath and off we finally go. Unfortunately, my bad day wasn’t over quite yet. We had just gotten up on to Aurora Side Road when I ride over something that punctures my rear tire. First flat of the year. I pull over and turn back and look at Nick, shaking my head, I tell him I have a flat, I can’t believe it. Fortunately, fixing a flat is not a problem and I had it changed and we were back on our way in short order.

Pulling away, I tell them, if anything else happens to me on this ride, just leave me and go! Oh well at least all this happened after my races and not during! Thanks for putting up with all that mess boys, I promise not to be as much trouble next time out! Hopefully that is as close as you’ll come to having trouble over the next couple of months!

1 comment:

Nick Nickolau said...

Buddy I wish I had a video camera to post it on Youtube and then put a link on Slowtwitch to the video. I think we would have broken the slowtwitch record for number of times a post was read. If nothing else Justin learned a couple of things. First watching a flat being changed and more importantly, training takes precedence over everything. Even hack off a $300+ carbon crankset.