If I'm not careful, I might just turn out to be a bike mechanic

Last night was a fun night at work for me. There hasn't been a lot to do with the gap between cycling season and snow season in the shop, but we had a guy stop in wanting us to check out a bike he bought from us six months ago. Rob talked with the guy at the counter while I was busy doing something else, but I overheard enough of the conversation to know that his bike was creaking when he really pounded the pedals and another shop told him that the pedals were the problem.

I started in on the bike about ten minutes after the guy left and gave it the once over. Everything seemed to be working okay, but when I rode the bike in our freight room, it creaked anytime I stood on the pedals and really cranked on them. I showed Rob how easy it was to make the sound and we were both pretty convinced that it probably had something to do with his bottom bracket.

Now, normally my tendency would have been to ask one of the more experienced mechanics for their opinion. Only problem was, I was the most experienced mechanic. I decided to take the crank arms off and remove the bottom bracket to see what we'd find. It took a little doing to remove everything, but once we did, we found several metal shavings in the bottom bracket shell which would easily be enough to make the noise we were hearing.

We cleaned things out, regreased the bottom bracket and threw everything back together. I hopped on and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't get the bike to creak. It was a more invasive surgery on a bike than I normally get to do, so there was definitely a sense of accomplishment. I figured, at the very least, Rob and I could claim to be smarter than the guys at the other shop that thought it was the pedals.

If I'm not careful, I might just turn out to be a bike mechanic.