I am such an idiot. Stupid, stupid, stupid. You’d think I’d know better by now.
While I’ve been looking after my bikes fairly well recently I’ve been putting off replacing the pedals on my main road bike. They’re second hand and the left pedal’s tension bolt hex socket has rounded off, so I can’t tighten it up as I’d like. I never notice how long I have these things or how many miles they’ve done. They wear away slowly and I partly notice and partly ignore. The cleats are a little worn but the modern Keo cleats seem pretty good these days with the little rubber anti-skid bits preventing them wearing too much with walking. The right pedal’s fine, but the left pedal holds the cleat poorly now. That’s the pedal I unclip when I stop, so it tends to get a bit grimy and the pedal itself wears down with the cleat as bits of sand and dirt get trapped between the cleat and the pedal. I’ve been meaning to swap for a new set for a while but never quite got round to it. Stupid.
Today I rode the first proper tempo training ride of the year. On a downhill section I was spinning the 53×12 fast to keep the watts up at over 60kph. It’s a section of road I know well, no problem. Until my left foot flew out of the left pedal forward, and jammed between my wheel and the crank as it span around. I’m glad I had mudguards on, but the result was my wheel jammed pointing left on a section of road bending to the right downhill at very high speed. I had enough time to think, “omfg this is going to hurt…” followed by talking to myself out loud, “holditholditholditholditholditholdit” I did hold it by sheer balance, experience and a pinch of awesomeness until the road straightened out, I could release the pressure on the right pedal and pull my left foot out. Stupid.
All for the sake of £50 worth of pedals. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I just ordered some new pedals.
Note to self and all of you: check it, and if you think it’s worn, replace it or repair it. Now.
