More crankiness…

So the crank arrived and looked great. That left the problem of installing it, but at least I had a new crank set. Naturally enough I decided to install it as soon as I had a little time. Of course I messed it up. Well, only for a few minutes, but messed up all the same.
I should note that I have a crank pulling tool, a couple of them in fact as there was a time I couldn’t find the one I had and…well you know the rest.
The first problem, and this wasn’t my mess, was that the crank were on tight enough that I couldn’t get enough leverage to pull the cranks off the bottom bracket. The second problem, not the mess either, was that I didn’t have a vise to hold the broken crank leg so that I could get the pedal attached to it off.
Sigh.
Well it was a weekend, this was a bit over a week ago, so I took it to my LBS and they had the bits off in no time, and I might add, didn’t bother charging me. Thank you!
I then took the bike off to the nearest park and get to work putting things on.
This is were I made my mistake. Can you guess what could go wrong when putting on cranks?
Yep, I wasn’t paying attention and instead of putting the crank arms 180 degrees from each other I put them on, ahem, the same way. I had two pedals pointed in exactly the same direction. Looks interesting but, um, you simply can’t pedal that way.
Sigh.
Well I was too embarrassed to go back to the shop so I walked the bike home, pulled one side off and reattached it. I know everyone was staring at me as I walked home. Cars slowed down and stared at my pedals. People gawked.
Okay, probably no one noticed. Besides me that is.
I then went for a ride and discovered, quite pleasurably, that the new cranks worked great and the extra two teeth were not a problem either for the length of my chain or the strength of my legs.
It’s been a bit over a week and I’ve ridden the QB daily including to 30+ mile rides. Lovely. I’m quite pleased with the purchase and my LBS. I’m not quite so pleased with my own mechanical skills, though really it was my lack of attention more than my actual wrenching that caused the problem.
All in all things are great with the bike and even my stupidity didn’t even last an hour.
Here’s a pic of the results after fixing my, um, attention deficit…