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I've come to the conclusion that my bikes are out to get me. But bikes are just inanimate objects incapable of sentient thought you say, and until recently I would have agreed with you. But read on.
The first manifestation was spontaneous shifting. I would get to a hill, downshift, then stand on the pedals. After a few pedal strokes, I would hear that nasty noise that happens when your chain is not really in gear, and then, boom, it would unilaterally shift into the next higher gear. Which, when climbing a hill, is really not what you want. After a few of these, I started shifting down two gears, so that I would eventually end up in the one I wanted. Annoying, but not life threatening.
But it escalated. Next, I would stop at an intersection, and start pedaling, when the chain would basically jump off the chainring leaving me spinning the crank, like a gerbil in a cage. This would of course leave me in the middle of an intersection going nowhere. This would only happen if I stopped pedaling, then started up again. Of course all you fixed gear types are thinking “well that’s your problem, don’t do that.” So I started riding in pseudo fixie style, keeping the pedal going round even though I was slowing for an intersection—the combination of braking and pedaling is really weird. That sort of got over that problem, but I was thinking that it was a good idea the chain slipped off only when at rest, or I could be in for a painful FDGB.
Well, you can guess what happened next. I’m riding up the hill on Curve Street, standing on the pedals, when chain and chainring are no longer attached. This is when I knew the bike had it in for me. I spent the rest of the commuting week afraid to get out of the saddle, and the incident was not repeated, but I knew it was just waiting to catch me off guard.
So I broke down and replaced the offending chainring, even though it didn’t look much more worn than most of my other bikes. It was of course a Biopace chainring, which adds not being round into the equation. But I figured I’d mastered the evil chainring and life would be back to normal.
So, right after the repair, I got on another of my ancient bikes to go to the bike store for parts. I decided to take the long way home, the usual route through Carlisle. Most of the way through the ride, I realized there was something funky going on way down low. This was especially noticeable on hills, when there was a definite squishy feeling coming from the pedals. First I thought the right crank arm was loose and about to fall off. This would be another interesting way to precipitate an FDGB, and riding with one crank doesn’t work very well (which I knew from experience, having broken two bottom bracket spindles). I got off and applied the usual first aid, whacked it a few times with a log. Then I noticed that there was also squishiness on the left pedal, and realized that the bottom bracket was loose. This is not a good thing, but as long as both crankarms are firmly attached, you won’t have flying parts and feet. Made it home pedaling rather gingerly, but I can only wonder what’s next.
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