That old familiar feeling

Well, on my way home while pedaling my little heart out my pedal started feeling kinda wierd.  Strangely enough, it was a familiar feeling as this same thing happened to my Walmart bike (a Mongoose MTB).  The left crank (as you are riding) was coming loose.  Good thing I noticed it. 

The last time, on the mtb, the crank fell off in the middle of a 4 lane road.  I had to run back out and get it.  Then I had to get a ride home.  Oh well...

Good Catch

This time, I caught the problem before it got out of hand.  Too bad that out of all the tools I carry I didn't have what I needed to fix the bike.  I needed a ratchet and 14mm socket, but only had a small set of pliars and a leatherman.  This got the nut back on until I could get to a store to buy the appropriate tool.  Oh, and btw, the Florence Target does not sell a ratchet set, at least not that I saw.  I had to ride/walk to Walmart a mile or two down the road to get a ratchet set.  

From now on, I believe that I'll keep the ratchet and a couple of  the sockets in my under-seat bag.

All's well that ends well

All in all, I as able to fix the crank and I got a new set of tools.  I'll try to look at the bright side.  It was a mini adventure.  Later!

Recently I got a new yardsale bike.  The yardsale also had lots of tools and general junk.  The couple that were hosting the sale had married within the last 5 years or so.  The wife told me that they were trying to consolidate their things and thus, the yardsale.  Anyway...there were lots of tools and I'm kind of a sucker for tools.  Well I found two of these: 

They are wrenches that have 10 different wrench sizes.  They are also extremely small and light.  I saw two so I bought two.  They work and are kind of handy.  The only problem I have is that the sizes on each of the ends are pretty much useless.  If a nut is tight then how could you use this to loosen the nut without some sort of bar for leverage?  

It doesn't matter, I always carry an adjustable wrench with me anyway and it works well.  This evening, I was lowering the seat on my yardsale bike and one of the wrenches broke!  Oh well, that's probably why I've never seen one of these for sale in a store. ;-)