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I recently purchased a boardman road bike and after 5 weeks as soon as you put effort into peddaling I am getting a squeaking noise from the bottom bracket, I took it back to halfords and they said it needs greasing every so often, is this an easy job to do and should I be doing at after only 5 weeks

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No bottom bracket should need greasing after 5 weeks unless you've been riding under water. –  Daniel R Hicks May 14 '12 at 18:17

1 Answer 1

It should not require greasing after only 5 weeks, unless it was not done originally.

A noise of that type can be caused by basically 4 things in the Bottom Bracket:

  1. Loose or worn bearings - in this case unlikely because of the age of the BB
  2. Loose or dry BB cups
  3. Loose crank bolts or crank arms
  4. Dry chain - not likely, given the stated fix by your shop.

Options 2 or 3 are likely given the fix described. Both would be repaired by removing, greasing and retorquing the BB.

The most likely cause after such a short time is that they were left loose or dry during assembly, and that the shop or mechanic was talking CYA.

But that is difficult to determine from several thousand miles away. You can be confident that the maintenance does not need to be performed every few weeks. Your twice yearly tune up should be enough.

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To anyone else who was flummoxed by the terminology in this answer, I've looked it up for you. CYA means "cover your ass" –  user973810 May 15 '12 at 13:01

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