Spent 5 hours chasing a ghost creak on my commuter bike

This creak drove me nuts for three weeks. I checked the bottom bracket, pedals, saddle rails, even the seatpost binder. Turned out it was the left crank arm loose on the spindle, just needed 8 Nm of torque from my Park Tool torque wrench in my shop in Portland. Anyone else waste time on a stupid simple fix that should have taken 2 minutes?

2 comments

2 Comments

robinwalker21d ago

Dry chain link is a classic lol. I've been that guy staring at my bike with a bottle of lube in one hand and a suspicious eye on the bottom bracket for an hour. Five hours is rough though, at least you got a good bike workout in from all the false starts. Nothing humbles you like a creak that was right in front of your face the whole time.

evah4021d agoMost Upvoted

Did you find it after only five hours? Because I spent a whole afternoon plus a weekend morning hunting down a creak that turned out to be just a dry chain link that needed one drop of lube. The worst part is I had the lube in my hand the whole time, but I was too busy checking the crank arms to think of the obvious thing. At least you had an excuse to use the Park Tool torque wrench. Mine was just me being stubborn and not wanting to admit I forgot basic bike maintenance.