It’s The Little Things

 It’s the little things…

How often have we heard that expression?

I learned how true it is when I taught English to people who don’t speak it as their native language. (People from Japan and France and Colombia who sound like me? Oh, dear!) “The little words are the most difficult,” I would reassure (or so I thought) them.  I wasn’t entirely wrong: Perhaps the most difficult words for non-native speakers to use properly, let alone well, are articles (Russian doesn’t have any), the verb “to be” (It doesn’t exist in Turkish) and prepositions—you know, words like “to” and “for,” which often don’t translate directly and are used differently from their English counterparts.

The little things are just as important on a bike. I, like most experienced cyclists, check my tire pressures, chain, gears and brakes before setting off on a ride. If I’ve had some bumpy treks—say, on unpaved trails or potholed streets— I might look at my racks, fenders or other accessories.

But there are some things, including some of the smallest screws and other parts, to which cyclists almost never pay attention. Cycling Weekly contributor Hannah Bussey discovered that the hard way—almost.

In addition to being a bike tester, she is a parent in a “multidisciplinary” bike family, which includes a daughter who participates in cyclo-cross. In her household, she explains, there are “more bikes than pedals.” That explains why she hastily “borrowed” a pair of SPD pedals for her mountain bike. “As I took off from what seemed a harmless jump,” she recounts, “I found myself footloose and ended up rolling around in, thankfully, a patch of bracken.”

Turns (no pun intended) out, the spring tension was “looser than I anticipated.” The irony is that people often fear the spring tension (or straps on pedals with toe clips) being too tight.  There is apparently a “point of no return” at which the rider can’t disengage because the binding is too loose. Think of a restraint that makes escaping more difficult because it stretches rather than breaks.

Photo by Hannah Bussey

The cleat retention on SPD, and most other clipless, pedal systems is regulated by a small screw or bolt that can loosen with use and time.  The same is true of the screws (typically 5mm) that hold toe clips to traditional pedals.

So now I am giving you, dear fellow cyclists and mid-lifers, the same advice I gave my language students: It’s the little things (or words).