Bikes, Lack of Standards, and Power Tools

On Sunday, I decided to finally swap out the out creaky, partially seized bottom bracket and chain (which 12 links had stretched to almost 13 in) on the commuter. Normally this a quick job. Pull the bols, pull the cranks, break the chain, pull the BB, grease everything, install new stuff, wash hands. 25 minutes tops.

Unfortunately my commuter has the stock cranks on it, the truvativ tauro pieces of garbage. No problem getting the drive side off, but i definitly stripped the left crank arm out. Now before you say it wasn't the crappy cranks be aware that I dripped penetrating oil in the arm before pulling it, and the park square taper puller was threaded the whole way in the hole.

Well, damn.

So to Home Depot I went and quickly emerged with a reciprocating saw, with which I proceeded to slice and dice that crank arm right off. It took a long damn time, but it did come off.

Ok, no problem. New bottom bracket installed, and I have two crank arms lying around that will work on the left side. Except wait! That POS Tauro crank is different from every other square taper crank in that the crank arm is perpendicular to a edge instead of a corner.

That means if I were to use either the Sugino left arm or a no name arm off my wife's bike, the drive side would be straight down while the left bent at a 45 degree angle. Additionally, since my commuter is set up for 3/32 I can't use my track crank (all the rings are 1/8th and the smallest ring I have is a 50) and the 48 tooth truvativ rings are 110 BCD instead of full sized.

So to the basement my commuter is relegated until a crank arrives (Wed) and I'll have two glorious days of riding the road bike. Today marked the first time all year I'd ridden it. It feels impossibly light. Almost dnagerously so. I wonder how fast i can get home today...45 minutes?

So to sum it up, cheap Truvativ cranks are just that: Cheap...and also shitty.