Shoutout to the guy who told me to check my bottom bracket before buying a new crankset

I spent two weekends chasing a creak in my pedal stroke. Replaced pedals, cleaned the chain, even greased the saddle rails. Finally broke down and pulled the cranks off, found the bottom bracket cups were barely hand tight. A $5 tool and 15 minutes fixed what I spent 12 hours overcomplicating. Has anyone else wasted days on a problem that had a stupid simple fix?

2 comments

2 Comments

oliviapatel24d ago

lol dude I feel this in my soul. I once spent a whole afternoon chasing a noise that turned out to be a loose water bottle cage bolt. Took the whole drivetrain apart, cleaned everything, even regreased my seatpost. Felt like a straight up clown when I found it. The best part was I'd already checked the cage twice and convinced myself it was tight. It's always the stupid little things that waste the most time, isn't it

fiona13023d ago

Honestly, have you tried just putting a tiny drop of blue Loctite on those bolts? I started doing that after a similar wild goose chase with my rear rack rattling for two weeks. Took me forever to realize it was just the bolts vibrating loose over bumpy roads. Now I do it on every little thing that bolts onto the frame. Saved me so much unnecessary head-scratching.