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broken bushing blues Sometimes my day can be ruined so easily by just one unexpected thing. What brought me down today was my exercise bike. I was pedaling away for my usual thirty minute ride when almost simultaneously; I heard a noise and noticed that something was wrong with the bike. The stroke felt odd and my feet met next to no resistance. Then before I could do anything else everything came to a stop as the chain clearly had derailed. At first I thought that it would be a simple matter of putting the chain back onto the gears, but unfortunately that was not the only problem. After some more checking, I found out that a bushing had cracked and that left the axle free to move about wherever it wanted to go and this made pedaling impossible. I vaguely remember seeing this bushing one other time when I noticed some slop in my pedaling, but I had no idea that almost a third of it would crack. Now this stationary bike is not a new piece of equipment so I doubt that I will be able to find a replacement for the broken part, but that is not what bothers me the most. I am upset that something that worked so well for me for months is suddenly useless. |