Since Scott’s bottom bracket and crank weren’t working very well we stopped at a bike shop to make some inquiries. When we learned it would be at least two hours before they could even start we decided to work on it ourselves. We had neither the tools nor knowledge to work on it but, really, how hard can it be?  

What could possibly go wrong if we worked on it? 

When the three of us put our collective knowledge of bicycle repair together, we had the TNT equivalent of a cap gun. 

After a couple of hours we were done and agreed that ….  “MAYBE it’s better,” then “Yeah, I think it is,” and finally worked up the baseless belief in our competence to “Oh YEAH… it’s DEFINITELY better.” 

Scott rode the "repaired" crank, and it kept wiggling, but, of course, he still swept past us as if he were in the Tour de France peloton and we were on clown tricycles.