During the big ride yesterday I noticed that a noise coming from my bike seemed to be worsening. It was kind of like a pop or a creak that happened primarily when I stood on the pedals on a climb, although near the end of the ride it seemed like it was happening more and more.

Today I decided it was time to do something about it. I was pretty sure it was coming from the bottom bracket so I removed the cranks and extracted the bottom bracket and cleaned it up, removed the rust and debris, cleaned out inside the bottom bracket shell and then re-installed the whole thing. It really wasn’t that hard to do when you have the right tools. The most time consuming step was trying to clean up the parts when they are all disassembled.

Then I did a quick test ride around the development. The effort appears to have done the trick. The noise seems to have gone away, although I probably won’t know for sure until I go out for a real ride again. Still, I’m pleased to have found the process to be not all that difficult.

I’ve posted a few before and after pictures of the process over at flickr. Feel free to check them out if you like. I wasn’t documenting step by step, but did think to snap a few pictures showing how dirty the inside of the bottom bracket shell was and how much better it looked after cleaning.

It’s been a bike centric weekend.