On my outside rides these past few weeks, I have been experiencing a really annoying creaking sound from the bottom of my bike frame.  I have been trying to determine the source of the creaking and I eventually concluded that I needed a new bottom bracket.

Creaking can come from a variety of sources.  Previously, I have had pedals that creak.  I have found that my chainring bolts can creak too.  It’s easy to fix these sources of noise.  You just take the parts off your bike, clean them, add a little grease and refit.  Until now, this approach has always fixed a creak. This time however, the creak remained.

Eventually I decided to check my bottom bracket.  It is the original OEM part and has seen about 15,000 miles of use, in all kinds of weather.  I discovered that the bearings were not running smooth and there was some slight play in the crank.  It was time for a replacement.

For my replacement, I chose to upgrade to a bottom bracket by BBinfinite.  This is a unique system which has a housing that ensures the bearings remain perfectly aligned. This perfect alignment not only helps with efficiency, but also helps prevent creaking.  I also chose to go with ceramic bearings.

A tool, that I needed to remove my old bottom bracket, arrived today and so I did the work to replace it, this evening.  For once, a big job on my bike went relatively smoothly.  The new bracket is installed, along with my newly waxed chain, a new cassette and new jockey wheels. 

This whole new set up felt great on a quick test ride this evening, and it will all get a good workout on my four hour long ride tomorrow.  My fingers are crossed that the annoying creak is gone!