I made another mistake. A costly one.
And I could not be happier!
😆
I have only one bike these days. I sold all the others. They were tailored to a fitter, younger, way more flexible version of this meat-suit I carry around, and therefore wholly unsuitable for my 50-something frame.
I love my bike. It's my ticket to adventure. To freedom. To the outdoors and new experiences and trees and mountains and weather and fitness and challenge and physical exhaustion and goals and travel and solitude and silence and community and conversation. It does it all!
But I've only got the one these days. So if it breaks, I'm a bit screwed.
It started breaking
They're mechanical beasts (certainly the one I ride), so things wear out on them (certainly with the miles I put in).
There's the obvious—bald tyres, broken lights, stretched chains, snapped cables—but then there's the less obvious, hidden stuff too: worn out components that manifest in other ways.
A slight wobble to the steering. A subtle grinding sensation underfoot.
A noise, that drives you nuts.
Like the clicking and creaking that I ignored at first, but then grew, over the weeks. Initially I only heard it when I was out of the saddle and pushing down through the frame hard, but eventually it started clicking when I was just tootling along effortlessly, too.
Nothing was loose. Everything was clean and well-oiled. (We run a tight ship, here at Croft's Cycling Emporium. 🤓)
So I knew what it was.
There was only one thing it could be.
It was the sodding bottom bracket. The most inaccessible, internal bit of the bike where the cranks are attached to the frame.
There's a dizzying array of kinds of bottom bracket too, which means they're kind of like the cyclist's nemesis (certainly mine).
Enter the mechanic
I've been tinkering with bikes since I was in short trousers and can do most jobs myself, but this newfangled ride of mine has some fairly proprietary components and I knew I needed help, and special tools, to replace it.
The Giles Ego Construct 📦 was not amused by this state of play (minds like to think they're in control, had you noticed?), and it started to worry. How much would it cost? How would I ensure I got the right part? What if it didn't fix the problem? Why has it worn out now? How much damage was I doing, riding it like this?
It worried every time I went out for a ride and I heard the noise. And it worried whenever I thought about going out for a ride.
Which pretty much covers my entire existence.
💁🏻♂️ 🚴🏻♂️ ❤️
I did some research, got in touch with a recommended someone who comes round to your house to sort your bike out for you, explained the problem, and between us we sourced the parts and agreed a time.
A fancy-schmancy bottom bracket that's supposed to eliminate these problems came out, tools-I-don't-have and expertise-I've-not-accrued were put to good use and a new one went in. A quick test ride up and down the road was almost entirely noise-free – ‘silent’, compared to how it had been.
Sorted.
It had cost me, but it was worth it. I was ready for the next 8,000km on a brand new bottom bracket.
🙌🏻
You know what happened next
On my next long ride, the noise re-appeared with a vengeance. Which meant the Giles Ego Construct 📦 went absolutely batshit crazy.
What if it wasn't the bottom bracket?! But then again, it had to be. I'd ruled out everything else, quite methodically. Which meant I didn't know where the noise was coming from. Maybe the frame itself? That's all that's left, surely? Had I damaged it somehow, over-tightening the cranks or something?! Oh god, I can't afford a new bike! But I can't ride it like this! What's wrong with it?! Have I broken it?! I don't know what to do!
😫
It was pretty bad in there, people. It doesn't take much to get a Giles Ego Construct's 📦 snow globe all shaken up, especially when it comes to bikes, and according to it, the rest of life wasn't really going to be much fun.
I'd had a good run with the new bike—two years of unbridled fun—but it was over now.
Sadness descended upon me.
Very reluctantly, I reached out to the mechanic.
Very nobly, he offered to come back out and re-do it for me. Rode the bike again. Tightened things back up again. The noise went away again.
This time we were both super-hopeful.
🤞🏻
Losing the plot
I'd love to say that was the end of it, but if it was, I doubt I'd be writing about it.
Because of course on the very next ride it returned again, worse than ever, and I started to spiral.
I found myself quizzing AI for suitable replacement bikes within my price range (I'm skint, I don't have a price range 🤦🏻♂️) and realistically staring down the only alternative the mind could furnish me with – I'd have to just stop cycling.
My life as I knew it, was over.
🚳🪦💐
My final act as a cyclist was to be a weekend away with my 12 year old daughter, that we'd had planned for months, with me shepherding her through the longest bike ride of her life to date—63 miles in a day!—and essentially handing over the baton.
That's it now. One generation of cyclists stops. Another begins.
(It's such a drama queen, the Giles Ego Construct 📦 🙄)
I had the presence of mind to realise nothing could be done before the trip away, so I busied myself getting both our bikes ready for the adventure: cleaning, adjusting, oiling; fitting panniers, swapping pedals out to touring ones, pumping tyres up to the right pressure.
Mentally I was steeled for a full weekend's noisy riding and then the strangest thing happened…
A revelation of wrongness
The noise disappeared!!
😲 🥳 🙌🏻
From the first pedal stroke, all the way through a full weekend's riding, in the saddle, out of the saddle… there was not one peep out of it.
It was completely silent.
I could have wept with joy.
It was immediately apparent from the only significant change I'd made—swapping the pedals over—that when I got home I'd be able to identify the real culprit.
Upon my return I squizzed at my main pedals I usually ride with, and sure enough, the threads on them were filthy (that's a before-after picture, at the top).
And of course, a quick clean and re-grease was all it took to restore order to Giles' World of Cycling.
I mean, seriously.
🤦🏻♂️
The joy of being wrong
This whole ridiculous, expensive episode got me thinking;
Even if we are right about something (usually in proving a point, eh?) the shine wears off very quickly and ego just goes looking for something else to be ‘right’ about, not long after.
Whereas in my experience, being wrong always seems to deliver more peace of mind.
By definition, in such circumstances ego has an idea of reality that it's serving up to me—“I'm right about this. I know I am.”—which turns out to be nonsense.
And what I'm left with is a silenced ego and a situation that's a little more closely aligned with reality.
What's not to like?
I think being wrong is brilliant!
😁
Giles
p.s. for the cyclists among you, before you go trying to silence your noisy bottom bracket, for the love of all that's good, watch this YouTube video first, because—as the man says, and as I have so aptly demonstrated with this sorry tale—IT'S NEVER THE BOTTOM BRACKET!! 😆
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