recent roll.............

last ride out was a day spin around the resevoir with Eric. Eric's a younger, stronger rider & early on he was putting a hurting on me. Trails were frozen early in the AM, with snow in long shadowy streches, making the ride a real work out at times. Not too many riders ventured out from the the look of the empty parking lot, but at about 10 miles in we met a group going toward where we had been. The last rider in the group of 6 was a friend I often ride with, Shannon. It's great to see friends on the trail when you don't expect it. I'll often turn & ride w/ a group at times like this, but Eric & I had a plan & Shannon's group was going the wrong way, so we headed off. The ride was going great, I felt fine, until we hit a long downhill at mile 15 & my crank arm detached from the bike. It's happened once before, so I was prepared. I got out my hellaofbig allen wrench & tightened that crank bolt back in snug. For good measure, I gave it one last turn, & it turned, & turned. Yep, I stripped it. I stuffed half a GU wrapper into the bb & tried to get some grip with the crank bolt. Seemed to do the trick & off we went. Made it maybe a mile & the arm was falling off again. I tried one last unsuccessful fix that bought me another mile or two, stuffed the detached crank arm into my camelback, & ran/rolled about 3 more miles back to the car. In all my years of riding I've only ended a handfull of rides off the bike. No big deal, but the guy at the shop had the same question I had been asking myself - 'who would make a crank bolt out of aluminum & why?' To save a gram I guess. I bought 2 steel replacements, the bike & the camel back will each be a gram heavier.