Getting those pesky pedals off

TriBikeTransport requires the pedals to be removed before taking the bike for shipment to Ironman Florida. OK, fair enough. But it's a real challenge when those pedals haven't been off in a couple of years and have been tightened on with every pedal stroke!

I do have a pedal wrench (uh, thanks for the tip, Flatman, yeah, that's step one) and went at it.

I thought hard and remembered the correct way to turn them to remove them: Taking off the bike pedals - it's BACK = off (pedal wrench at 12 o'clock goes toward the back of the bike) and FORWARD = on.

Still no result. They were stuck on there like concrete.

So I put out an all-points-bulletin to my email lists for help. Am I doing it wrong?

Within minutes I had several helpful responses. Yes, I was turning them correctly.

Special thanks to:

• Brad Jeske who suggested a spritz of WD40 first to loosen them up
• My husband who suggested tapping the pedal wrench with a hammer to unfreeze the bolts
• Kevin Biek who sent a great link on the topic: http://www.parktool.com/repair/readhowto.asp?id=83

THAT WORKED! Off they came. I cleaned them and put them in a ziplock and then straight into the gear bag.

Yay! READY TO GO!! ON TO IRONMAN FLORIDA!!

What did we ever do without the Internet??

THANKS AGAIN!