I’ve had a nagging click in the right drive-side pedal for quite some time now. Using advice from Bicycle Tutor, I looked at the more obvious places for the click. I took the pedal off and regreased the threads. I fixed two stuck links in my chain. I also tightened the crank arm bolt just a bit. Unfortunately, none of these fixed the issue causing the noise. The noise occurred on the down stroke, when my right foot was at about the 2 o’clock location in the pedal revolution. The noise was more obvious when riding my trainer indoors, as there was no wind or road resisitance to muffle sound. I thought I was looking at a bottom bracket overhaul. However, with the recent acquisition and installation of a Brooks B17 saddle, the noise seems to have disappeared. I should have paid more careful attention and noted that the noise did not occur when I was out of the saddle. For now, my drivetrain noises have disappeared, and the mystery noise has been attributed to the old worn-out seat. Now all I have to be worried about is trying to break the Brooks in a bit. Only another 490 miles or so until it feels just right.
Tag Archives: bike repair
Change Your Life, Ride a Bike
I just found the Change Your Life, Ride A Bike blog via The Old Bike Blog. The Change Your Life blog highlights how riding a bike has impacted folks’ lives. Thom, the creator of the Old Bike Blog, was feature in a recent post. I thought what he said about learning to fix your own bike was pretty cool:
I started the Old Bike Blog to chronicle my progress on restoring the Columbia, and within about five months, I was done. I had absolutely zero previous experience, just a few tools, and a healthy dose of concern that I would never be able to get the thing put back together correctly. But in the end, I successfully dismantled, cleaned, sanded, painted, re-greased, and reassembled my bike. Today, it is my grocery bike, and has been joined by several other old bikes, all of which I’ve restored or refurbished. My learning curve has been (and still is) extraordinarily steep, and I discovered not only a passion for the work of restoration, but also the absolute importance of really *knowing* your bicycle, inside and out, front and back. It’s something everyone *can* do, and I believe very passionately in the democratizing potential of do-it-yourself bicycle mechanics. That’s how riding (and working on) bicycles has changed my life, and will continue to do so for many years.
I’m still learing to work on my own bike. One of the reasons I don’t work on my bike more often is I’m afraid of having it down for too long; that is, me taking too long to figure out what I’m doing and missing riding. His comments there do give me some confidence and inspiration to attempt to learn and *know* mby bike more.