How often do you ride through corn fields

Now that summer is almost over (stores are already opening up their Fall displays!!) I finally have my bike in working order. After putting off and putting off getting it fixed I eventually broke down and realized that it wouldn’t fix itself. Last summer…or even earlier maybe…Sarah was riding my mountain bike when the drive side (right) pedal fell off! Turns out that it had stripped itself off and the only way to fix it is to buy a new crank arm. I soon found that I couldn’t just replace the arm but I needed to also replace the entire crank because it is such an old model. I took it into a local shop, found a good deal and ended up replacing the bottom bracket (all the ball bearings that help turn the pedals) while they were in there. Replacing the bottom bracket marks the point where everything on this bike but the frame has been swapped out…it sorta begs the question, “at what point does a bike no longer hold on to its original identity, and where does the soul of a bike reside?” hmmmm… but that is another posting, I was talking about riding!! Anyway, I get it fixed, race home in my jubilation, throw on the pedal and head out to discover all the trails I have been dreaming about. About 8-9 miles out I realize that I can’t go any further (mostly it was my backside yelling with pain) so I turn around. No sooner do I do that then my pedal falls out AGAIN!!! Ok, now I am upset!! I am mostly upset because as I look at it I see that there are shavings of crank on my pedal, therefore when I put on the pedal I must have done something wrong in my haste. I now have taken the bike back to the shop and turns out there is a very easy and cheap way to fix this (why didn’t we do that first, huh?) you just drill out the old threads, and tap in a tube that is threaded for the right size… done in an hour. So I again, came home in my jubilation, and head out for another ride. This time though, I took the pedal in with me to the shop, so that they could put it on right! : )