When we last saw our two intrepid bike tourists, they were stranded in Leadville with a broken crankarm…

It was Leadville layover day and bike shop stop on our Colorado odyssey. Nervously we awaited the 10 a.m. opening of Cycles of Life to see if Brian could repair our broken crankarm.

We watched him dig through all of his spare parts boxes, in search of a crankarm that might work on the captain’s non-drive side. No luck.

Brian sent us to Community Threads, where Smokey went back into a closet that contained “random bike s#@$.” In it, we found a Shimano 175 mm XT arm from the 1990s. Success!

We walked back to Cycles of Life with crankarm in hand and Brian quickly repurposed the left arm to the right side, and installed it with a new Shimano pedal.

Felkerino clipped in to give the new setup a test ride around the parking lot and his shoe lodged into the pedal. Because we had to use a left crankarm on the right side, the pedal is backwards. Darn freak bikes.

Back into the bike shop we went, with the shoe still stuck on the bike. Brian helpfully dislodged it and Felkerino turned his SPD cleat around so that he could clip in and out. It’s not totally smooth, but it effectively does the job.

I wasn’t sure how this day would work out, but we now have four functioning crankarms.

Isn’t that beautiful?

Many thanks to Cycles of Life and Community Threads for fixing us up. Phew! On we ride, backwards crankarm and all.