Loose Moulton Swingarm Bolt Prompts a Pre-Ride Safety Check

A loose swingarm bolt on a Pashley Moulton is a useful reminder that even a short ride starts with a check of the bike. The bolt was close to coming off when its rider noticed play after dismounting. A commenter had previously described a similar bolt failure on a TSR 30. That warning stayed with the rider, who inspected the Pashley and found the fastener loose.

The rider calls this bike the PashMo and works as the Old Crap Test Pilot for Classic Cycle. It’s a new test bike, already accompanied by a compact adjustable wrench and an Allen key in a Bananasack. Those tools are enough to snug up the bolt if it loosens during a ride. The inspection, though, came only after a new movement caught the rider’s attention.

The rider has two test cycles, though one is notably small: one of them is pretty small.

The PashMo has already prompted a small roadside-tool setup:

A compact tool, and a close call

The rear wheel uses a bolt-on axle, which explains the wrench. An adjustable wrench is an imperfect match for axle bolts, but carrying one can make sense when a bike has fasteners in several sizes. The wrench here is the shortest the rider could find, yet its jaws open across a surprisingly wide span.

Whether the short handle provides enough leverage to loosen a stubborn bolt is still an open question. The rider has a workaround in mind: remove the seatpost and slide it over the wrench handle to extend the grip. That’s a contingency, not a substitute for checking the bike before setting out.

A commenter’s account supplied the prompt for a closer look. They wrote: “I had a TSR 30, it was wonderful until it tried to kill me when the bolt holding the swing arm to the bottom bracket failed.” The rider didn’t inspect the PashMo immediately after reading that. Instead, noticing play after dismounting this week brought the warning back to mind. On inspection, the bolt was loose enough that the nut was close to falling off.

The bolt had backed out:

The nut was nearly off:

That’s enough to make a pre-ride routine feel less like fuss and more like part of the ride. A quick check of key fasteners and a look for new movement can reveal a problem before it develops further. The rider’s Allen key and adjustable wrench offer a way to tighten the bolt if needed, but the account doesn’t establish a torque setting or a wider inspection procedure for every Moulton. Follow the bike maker’s guidance for the specific fastener and model.

From bike checks to the bike pageant

The post then returns to its running gear contest, the Meh-Roica Bike Pageant, which still has no declared winner. One entry earns its case through a mix of period details: a URL decal inside the non-drive chainstay, ten-speed Dura-Ace from the owner’s first road bike, a CAAD they wish they’d kept, and hand-built Open Pro wheels paired with Ultegra components. The owner says Ksyrium wheels would fit the theme better, and notes that those came with the CAAD.

The rest of the build adds a one-inch headset with a King GripNut fitted upside down, a new-old-stock Paramount unicrown fork with splatter paint, and carbon Arundel bottle cages remembered as a sought-after accessory at the time. The pageant’s sponsor, Dumonde Tech, gets a joking comparison to a single malt Scotch for viscous fluids. The host promises to keep the contest going as long as possible.

The contest’s period flavor comes partly from that frame decal. In the early days of the web, reaching a company site meant entering its full address correctly. Search engines soon made that less necessary, though URL decals lingered. In the pageant, the once-practical detail now reads as a distinct marker of its era.

Other entries call up the same period in different ways. The post recalls a time when riders could walk into a shop and buy a bicycle equipped with Campagnolo components, then jokes about asking a salesperson how to find Bianchi online.

Two-bike entries raise a judging question: should the stronger bicycle carry the pair, or should the lesser one set the score? The host admits that a rule based on the weaker entry would have been useful, but the contest is already underway, so a submission featuring two bikes remains in consideration.

A Colnago C-40 in the pair makes the judging harder: the host sees nothing “meh” about it. A further puzzle is whether a new frame could be built up to meet the pageant’s older-bike aesthetic. The post closes on that possibility with a photo of a frame and a book cover for If I Got It: The Pursuit of a Richard Sachs, by Bike Snob NYC. For now, both the contest verdict and the imagined build remain unresolved. The more immediate lesson has already landed: check the fasteners before the next ride.

The post also veers into stage bikes, recalling Rob Halford’s motorcycle appearances and suggesting that a Moulton might have been easier to manage as he got older. A bicycle can still carry hard-rock presence: Axl Rose is presented as an early “alt cyclist,” with a style the writer likens to Ultraromance. The detour shares the pageant’s affection for bikes as personal expression, while the loose bolt gives the day’s riding a practical final note: inspect first, then head out.