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June 4, 2008
Loss
The last two times I've gone cycling, if you don't count tonight or Monday, I've lost bits and pieces of my bicycle or gear.
Last Saturday I had The Mighty Schwinn out for a spin on the bi-directional wind tunnel that also serves as our bike path. I'd just crossed one of the streets that breaks up the path when a couple of things happened all at the same time: I felt something slip at my left hand and I heard a harmonic-like tiiiing.
The great thing about the human mind is that while it may lose track of your car keys on a daily basis it is able to take simultaneous yet seemingly disconnected events and throw some commonality at them so you are able to recognize a bad situation and take steps to make it from getting worse. And, while that is admittedly a little melodramatic, the combination of the two events I experienced, combined with my knowledge of my bike, told me I needed to stop before a bushing fell out of my left hand brake. And I stopped just in time to catch it in my right hand.
The ting was the most troubling part of the whole thing as it was a signal that the screw I'd lost had likely hit a spoke on its trip toward the ground and had just as likely been launched off in a direction I might not expect. At least that was my theory. And it was a theory I'd eventually prove. (I know that having a theory first and then finding the facts to support it is bad science, it's just the way this thing worked out.)
This past Sunday I had The New Bike out and came to a point in the trip during which I felt the need to pull a tool out and do some piddling; I decided to adjust the tire pump mount with a set of Allen wrenches I had with me.
This particular set of Allen wrenches is a self-contained unit of eight wrenches packaged like a Swiss Army knife with four blades that extend from either end. As I extended one of the wrenches the bolt that secured one end of the knife-like package slipped out and into the grass. To my credit I caught the nut.
I spent 15 minutes on my hands and knees poking around in the grass for the only thing in the grass that should not have felt like grass or dirt. Even though I had seen right where the bolt fell I am not sure I was ever even close to it. Part of the reason I had trouble is that I didn't have my glasses on and it's my near vision that is weak; I'm pretty sure that had I been on the moon I would have spotted the bolt right away.
Of course, then my reach would have fallen a little short.
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Posted by delmer at June 4, 2008 9:56 PM
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Comments
A tool in the hand is worth a bushing on the road...or something like that.
Posted by: metalmom at June 5, 2008 3:37 PM
I may have to move away from things like bolts and bushing and start relying more on duct tape -- it works with everything (except ducts, it seems.)
Posted by: delmer at June 6, 2008 8:59 AM