The Operation Was Successful!

I'm happy to report good news today: I'm feeling quite a bit better (knock on wood, but -- hooray!), and Zack fixed Spanky! My cyclocross bike, affectionately known to me as Spanky (I have a dorky habit of anthropomorphizing my bicycles), has suffered from a mysterious creaking/pinging sound for quite some time now. It eventually got loud enough to make me ride with an iPod, I'm sad to say. Now, Zack Vestal spent some time looking at various components, back in the day, and then gave up, saying it was probably the frame, but he didn't really seem to have time or inclination to look into it. (And I never quite wanted to take it to a bike shop, only to get charged a zillion dollars for labor while they wasted time looking at every damn component just to satisfy themselves that I knew what I was talking about when I said it's the frame.)

So: Zack P. took it upon himself to "beat the professional mechanic" in problem solving. Here he is inspecting the frame for hairline fractures (a VERY bad thing that had me worried):


After much flexing of the frame in every direction, he speculated that the riveted-on water bottle bosses were creaking against the frame. (The bosses are the holes in the frame that allow you to bolt on a water-bottle holder, or "cage" as they're called.) He used large amounts of every type of bike lube, grease and spray that I had in my toolbox, and after much wiping, jiggling and flipping the bike around, the sound was nearly gone. We stared at each other in elated disbelief, but then heard another ping as he torqued on the frame one more time. Ugh! But I was willing to guess that he was still right, and that it was just going to take time for the lube to penetrate the dry rivets. I took the bike outside and rode around, standing on the pedals in a big gear and applying as much torque as possible to the frame. No sound!!! I love it!! Zack is the man. My Spanky is a silent stealth machine once again.

Zack during our ride today: