Bought a Cervelo Dual in September, rode it outside a bit before it got cold. When the crap weather took hold, it went up on the trainer. Bottom bracket set started creaking in January, particularly when I mashed, so had my LBS tune it up. Voila, no creaking. They didn’t tell me what it was, just generally “tightening”.
She’s creaking again now, and rather than take it back to the LBS (and drop another $25), I’d like to do this stuff myself. What should I focus on in looking over the bottom bracket set?
While it’d be great to take it back to the shop I bought it from for these little tune-ups (they’d probably do it for free), that shop is 5 hours away.
Pull your cranks off. Take out the BB and clean everything and grease that some bitch up good with good grease (water repellant). I also put some threadlock on the threads before I put back in. Clean and grease your cranks too. Aside from BB, the creaking could also come from front derailer, pedals, rear hubs. I would clean and regrease those as well and she’ll be smooth and quiet…until you ride in the next monsoon!
According to park tool instructions, don’t use a thread locking compound (loctite) on aluminum BB shells. Here is a link to that website. I used these instructions when I first started doing my own maintenance and find them to be accurate and helpful. Since you have a dual, my guess would be that you have a cartridge style BB, so pay particular attention to the cartridge disassembly and installation procedure. Good luck, you’ll find it’s easier than you think.