lupi

cow of tailed snake (gay)

avatar by @citriccenobite

you can say "chimoora" instead of "cow of tailed snake" if you want. its a good pun.​


i ramble about aerospace sometimes
I take rocket photos and you can see them @aWildLupi


I have a terminal case of bovine pungiform encephalopathy, the bovine puns are cowmpulsory


they/them/moo where "moo" stands in for "you" or where it's funny, like "how are moo today, Lupi?" or "dancing with mooself"



Bovigender (click flag for more info!)
bovigender pride flag, by @arina-artemis (click for more info)



lupi
@lupi

to say I was never expecting my bike to break down in this way, ever, at all, is a downright understatement.

the bolts didn't even shear, they just ... weren't there?

I'd just gone downtown to drop most of my emergency cash in the bank so I could be sure I made the start-of-month bills, and this happened on the way home. I'd decided to take the circuitous route and go look at birds in the parks along the river. barely made it a mile that way before... well, it happened sometimes between the bank and this photo, but I didn't notice it at first because I mistook the intermittent rubbing sound for radio fuzz from the radio I was listening to.


lupi
@lupi

fortunately it was the same threads as bolts for my bottle cage, so i could take the second cage off, throw it in the saddlebag, and adjust my plans to go get new bolts from the hardware store

I asked family and the Internet for guesses on what kind of bolt I should be looking for and spot out a guess of M5, and a general statement of half-remembered belief that most bike frames are tapped the same, like how all cameras are ¼"-20tpi for their mounting screw.

there was skepticism, and in fairness there was also some from my own end, but the hardware store would tell all


lupi
@lupi

M5 BABY I CALLED IT

anyway after that I went across the street to Publix and got a frozen pizza to celebrate victory

one of the original bolts must have backed out and I didn't notice, which made it easier for the second to follow.

so, more eventful evening than planned, but I'm the best ever I did it I fixed the problem and I survived.

those bolts were a buck fifty apiece for a 16 millimeter long bolt tho, what. wack.


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in reply to @lupi's post:

that's really, really unfortunate. are the threads in the frame bosses ok?

I've had the exact same thing happen to me, in my case the bolts were vibrating loose. It's the kind of thing that turned me off modern bikes (really anything built in the last 40 years or with a derailleur), just all these preventable failures

in fairness those bolts had not been tightened in twenty years since my dad put the rack on when he bought the bike new. the scope of this failure is "minor but preventable but also funny"

in reply to @lupi's post: