BATTLE: BIKE PEDAL!
I love my exercise bike. It is the only place I get to play video games anymore. Me. My xbox. My exercise bike. Good times. So when my BFF is broken, it requires immediate attention.
Over the last few years the rubber strap on the top of the pedals have broken and been patched several times. They finally gave out, and I figured I would upgrade to some spiffy pedals with real cages. Not too spiffy mind you. So ffwd 3 weeks, and my ebay specials show up from china.
I screw them on and they work great for a week or two, when a click develops in the left pedal. This is annoying as shit, and I turn to the internet for guidance.
Searching for “bicycle clicking noise” gets a ton of responses, so I’ll save you the trouble and say that I determined the problem came from the left pedal, and is probably related to the ball bearings.
I’d love to do a walk through on all this, but since this project goes down as an absolute failure, I’m not too keen to relive it.
Some basics on removing your pedals. This was very helpful in seeing how to break them down:
Here is part2 of his tutorial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DNDzlrklBk
How to grease your pedal ball bearings:
http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-576932.html
Things learned:
- How to remove ball bearings from bike pedals
- That when you take out the spindle the little fuckers fall everywhere
- That you SHOULD have a gap in between the bearings once they are placed back in the “run”.
- What a “run” is
- Ball Bearings can break
- The difference between sealed and loose bearings
- That the dude at the cycle shop has little patience for anyone trying to rebuild a bike pedal
- Difference between oil and grease
After removing, cleaning, lubricating, rebuilding several times, the damn click is still there, and I give up. Bought a $10 pair of replacement pedals. Now I just have get the cages off my old pair and onto my new ones.
BROKEN PEDAL WINS!