As I was pulling in to the alley behind my office on Wednesday, I noticed a strange sensation in my right foot and then suddenly my foot came free of the pedal. Or actually, the pedal came free of the bicycle. I looked down and sure enough, my lovely bicycle had suffered a slight setback as the pedal spindle was firmly attached to the bicycle, but the pedal body was firmly attached to my foot. This presents some obvious problems, in this case, how do I get myself back home? I was fortunately given a ride by a co-worker and endeavoured to fix the pedal the following morning. This also proved problematic because upon closer inspection I discovered that I have completely worn through the bearings on the inside of the pedal, the wee balls were rusty and mangled and no longer functional in the least.

This brings me to the interesting part; it felt kinda good to see the destroyed pedal guts. There's something quite satisfying about wearing out sports equipment. If a car breaks down, of course you just get pissed and think of the money you have to spend on fixing it. For a bicycle however, I just think, "Yeah, I pedaled that thing to DEATH!" It's the same feeling I got from seeing the stacks of old running shoes when I was running a lot. I feel powerful to have made this artificial product yield to my manly power. Additionally, it's an excuse to get new toys, which may be the real inspiration after all.