microcord
Maximum Pace
- Aug 28, 2012
- 1,650
- 1,195
A couple of months back I started to notice clinking sounds from, I thought, below me. They were mild. They'd come for a few turns of the cranks, and then disappear. They seemed to be in time with the cranks, but even this wasn't so clear. They didn't worsen. In some short rides I didn't hear them at all. What they weren't were the creaky noise one gets (I've got) from loose cranks, and the cranks definitely weren't loose.
LBS man confirmed that neither the cranks nor the pedals were loose and said he didn't know what it was. He suggested that I just ignored it, unless/until it got worse.
About 40km from home on Saturday, I noticed that the sound had become more consistent. It only arises when I apply power to the cranks. If I apply lots of power (by my puny standards) it doesn't seem to worsen; indeed it seems to lessen (though this might be an illusion). And it's the right crank rather than the left.
I've never touched the BB on any bike (well, not since my nightmarishly cottered youth). Whenever I try to read about the BB, what I see is all so complex that my head spins. But even if I chicken out and ask a bike shop, I should know more than I do now.
I do vaguely recall that the (mid/late-eighties!) BB was marketed as "sealed". I don't suppose it was the most expensive option, but I wouldn't have bought something that smelled dodgy. (It might have been the "Shimano 105" equivalent in the Suntour range.) Despite its age, it will have had little use (only a couple of thousand kilometres, I'm ashamed to say), all of it placid. It might of course be a lemon, or a dud design, but I haven't read of these.
Is this likely to be a problem of one or both of the retaining whatnots that attach the BB cassette to the frame? Or could it be the cassette itself?
LBS man confirmed that neither the cranks nor the pedals were loose and said he didn't know what it was. He suggested that I just ignored it, unless/until it got worse.
About 40km from home on Saturday, I noticed that the sound had become more consistent. It only arises when I apply power to the cranks. If I apply lots of power (by my puny standards) it doesn't seem to worsen; indeed it seems to lessen (though this might be an illusion). And it's the right crank rather than the left.
I've never touched the BB on any bike (well, not since my nightmarishly cottered youth). Whenever I try to read about the BB, what I see is all so complex that my head spins. But even if I chicken out and ask a bike shop, I should know more than I do now.
I do vaguely recall that the (mid/late-eighties!) BB was marketed as "sealed". I don't suppose it was the most expensive option, but I wouldn't have bought something that smelled dodgy. (It might have been the "Shimano 105" equivalent in the Suntour range.) Despite its age, it will have had little use (only a couple of thousand kilometres, I'm ashamed to say), all of it placid. It might of course be a lemon, or a dud design, but I haven't read of these.
Is this likely to be a problem of one or both of the retaining whatnots that attach the BB cassette to the frame? Or could it be the cassette itself?