Spent 4 hours trying to fix a creaking bottom bracket that was just a dry seatpost

I was convinced my bottom bracket was shot because of this loud creak every pedal stroke, so I pulled it apart, greased everything, and put it back together no luck. Turned out the noise was coming from a dry seatpost sleeve that I never even touched. Has anyone else spent way too long chasing a phantom noise on their bike?

2 comments

2 Comments

stella6144d agoMost Upvoted

Oh MAN I feel this so hard. I spent an ENTIRE weekend once chasing this horrible creak that sounded like it was coming from my pedals. I took my cranks off THREE TIMES, regreased the threads, checked the chainring bolts like some kind of obsessive. Finally my buddy just randomly sat on my bike and wiggled the seatpost and guess what? Dry as a bone. I felt like such a fool but also SO relieved. The worst part is I had to take off my rear derailleur and re-index everything because I messed with the crank so much. Now any weird noise I get I just lube the seatpost first before touching anything else.

finley_harris54d ago

Nah but seriously how did you finally figure out it was the seatpost? Did you just randomly start pulling stuff apart or what?