It has certainly been a strange week. The weather has been all over the place, from spring-like temperatures in the 70s and clear blue skies to heavy thunderstorms and major tornado damage. From my office window I can see the top of the Entergy Building which atop which is a big U.S. flag. Since the storm the other night, the flag is badly torn and the ends are frayed. They really ought to fix that. It seems like all I have to show for this week is a longer list of unfinished stuff than I had when it started. I'm going to have to break down and actually make a dreaded "to do" list, because I keep remembering things I need to do late at night when I can't do them.
This morning there was a pretty big group, for a Friday. I'd say about ten or twelve. As is customary for Friday rides, we rode most of the way in a double line at a moderate pace. Things were going along smoothly until just after we started back from the turnaround at the parish line when suddely John R's Look pedal body ejected itself from the spindle and he found himself with the pedal firmly attached to his shoe, but not to his bike. This one was not to be fixed on the road, I'm afraid, and he really wasn't able to put any pressure on that pedal, so after a while he told us to go ahead. I assume he eventually limped back home. I don't think I've ever seen that happen, and it's been so long since I've been inside a Look pedal that I don't remember how they're held together.
Some of the most significant tornado damage from the storm happened to be right alongside the levee near where we start, and I have to say, it was pretty impressive. There was a huge piece of metal warehouse siding completely wrapped around the top of a power pole, easily 25 feet off the ground. They're going to have to shut off the power to untangle that thing, and it won't be easy. Down on the ground there is a whole line of industrial buildings that are just completely trashed. It looks like a bomb went off. The tornado missed the company where my sister works by about a block.
So we have a little 2-man time trial this Sunday up in Baton Rouge. It's all of 10 miles, which seems more than just a little bit short to me. At least the weather is looking like it will be fairly good, if a little bit on the chilly side, with temps at race time in the upper 40s, light winds, and clear skies. Since there's a LAMBRA meeting afterwards (I still don't know where), I guess I'll be stuck in B.R. for a while. Not sure how I'm going to work the logistics on all that yet. I'm still in a stalemate with this head cold, so I haven't been too anxious to ride really hard the last couple of days. I'm hoping I can keep it from getting into my lungs before Sunday.
1 comment:
That Look pedal fiasco used to happen to me all the time on my PP166s "back in the day". It actually wasn't too hard to fix it on the road if you stop pedaling for a bit and coast. You can useually get the spindle inserted back into the pedal body that way, then backpedal to tighten the threads into the body.
As far as construction goes, the 166 and others of the 2xx and 3xx era all had a pretty simple system consisting of inner and, in the higher end stuff, outer bearings. Some of them used roller bearings while others used ball bearings, but all were cartridge bearings. I believe that the infamous "lance pedal", the dura-ace Look-style pedal, improved this design by using real bearings at the inside, along with roller bearings near the outer edge.
Anyway, putting it back together properly is a matter of having the right size cone wrench--probably a 14 or 15 if memory serves--and applying some Loctite 242 (blue) to the threads before tightening it down.
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