This is an ex-pedal...

It became an ex-pedal by shearing off its spindle. It did this as I noticed traffic lights ahead for a right hand turn I wanted to make turn green thereby causing me to stand on the pedals to put a bit of a spurt on. This resulted in a 20mph+ dismount, followed by a ten yard slide on the greasy road surface, wearing away the bar tape to the metal, and putting holes in my cycling jacket and mid-layer underneath. Remarkably this road-rashing did not transmit through to my arm, nor did any other part of me come off badly in this unexpected road interaction.

Of more annoyance was that it took me a few moments to disentangle myself, with traffic behind and a bus to my side, and not one person could even bring themselves to wind a window down to shout a query as to my one-piecedness. Nor did that happen as I scrambled to the side, having spotted and picked up the pedal, showing it to the traffic behind to explain my sudden horizontal move, and examined the bike on the pavement with the traffic resuming a slow filter.

Second big off in a couple of weeks, and while the first one was entirely down to my own stupidity, this was I really can't see how I could have saved it... The problem with the pedal isn't something I could really have detected earlier, nor would have shown up in the service I gave the bike the other day (I don't go as far as stripping the pedals down), but maybe I'd be better off on the bus.

Except I know I'd last one trip before pining once more for the bike. Which means a lunchtime wander to the only place I think stocks a particular type of pedal I'm going to change to (over the years the durability of Crank Bros was starting to grate). This will involve waling a short section of Leith Walk - and you can almost guarantee, the way my luck is going, that this will be the day I see an otter or kingfisher having already done my blip...

*grump*