Help with bike issue Identification

YellowCat said:

A few months ago, I bought a new mountain bike from Canadian Tires (I live in GTA, ON, Canada). And yep, you don't have to tell me that I made a mistake buying from there.

The bike I bought is a 26" CCM Static. There have been many problems with this bike since I've bought it, disc brake not aligned, disc clamp not adjusted right, gears not indexed with revo microshifters, derailleur position limiters not adjusted to correct level, and more.

I have (with help from my bro) fixed most of these problems, but now I have come to a new problem that I need help identifying. I have bought the bike 3 months ago, but didn't start riding it until start of May. Just after about a month, I started hearing noises... at first I thought it was the drive train or chain hitting some part of the derailleur or something, but it is very loud, and comes from the pedal area.

I noticed patterns and found that the sound only comes when I try to accelerate on the bike quickly. (By the way, the sound, sounds just like very sharp and distinct clicks, I don't know how to describe it better). When you pedal backwards, or pedal while utilizing momentum, the sound doesn't occur. It only happens when you suddenly pedal on high gear, or any gear that causes acceleration.

Now, I'm not very knowledgeable in bikes at all, but I highly suspect this to be a problem with the pedal ball bearings, probably one of them cracked and broke. I know these things aren't supposed to break easily but it is definitely something inside the pedal axle area. Every time I try to accelerate, it kills me because I fear I am damaging my bike the more I ride it in its present state.

Sight unseen, I'm going to suggest that your current assessment that the problem may be with one of your pedals is correct ... well, hopefully, your assessment is correct!

You shouldn't fret over needing to change the pedals because -- presuming your bike came with plastic pedals -- you should just buy a new, non-plastic pedal and treat the pedals that came with the bike as a "courtesy" which allows the rider to pedal away from the store.

I'm going to recommend that you buy something like Nashbar's "commuter" pedal (or, equivalent Wellgo OR Shimano) which has a clipless side & a 'flat' side if you think that you may want the clipless option at some future point in time.

As far as how the bike was set up, well, that's part of the limitation of not buying a bike from a bike shop ...

However, ONE REASON bike shops typically have a 'free adjustment' for the new owner of a bike after 30 days is because (in addition to cable stretch) not all of the shops are fastidious about how well the bike is prepped & they subsequently want the rider/owner to sort out any possible problems ...

In retrospect, I was probably 'lucky' that there were only a few adjustments which I needed to 'fix' on the first bike I bought from a bike shop (a gazillion years ago).

I'm not going to dispute Alfeng's assessment as he has good bike sense. However, there is another possibility that I have experienced. If the clicks all occur at the same point of the crank rotation, it is a good possibility that it is coming from your bottom bracket (BB). In this case, you will want to remove your BB cartridge, wrap the threads with teflon tape (plumber's tape), and then reinstall it. I have had clicking occur on two different bikes and this eliminated it both times.

Thank you both for you opinions!

I think I agree with kdelong. I guess it is partially my fault as I don't know proper term for all bike parts, but I am almost sure clicking is coming from bottom bracket. This is because when I pedal backwards, regardless of how fast or how slow, I don't get that clicking noise at all (which if it was the pedal problem itself, it would make a sound no matter which direction you pedal).

Mind if I ask, how hard is it to take BB out and fix it? Also, then the problem would be due to the thread and not bearings in the BB?

YellowCat said:

Thank you both for you opinions!

I think I agree with kdelong. I guess it is partially my fault as I don't know proper term for all bike parts, but I am almost sure clicking is coming from bottom bracket. This is because when I pedal backwards, regardless of how fast or how slow, I don't get that clicking noise at all (which if it was the pedal problem itself, it would make a sound no matter which direction you pedal).

Mind if I ask, how hard is it to take BB out and fix it? Also, then the problem would be due to the thread and not bearings in the BB?

It really depends upon what kind of BB you have. Check out the following link:Park Tool Website. Removal usually involves some special tools so you might be better off letting your LBS do it until you are more familiar with taking your bike apart.

Sometimes the threads of the BB are a little smaller than the BB shell and it causes a knocking noise whenever the pedals are loaded up such as when you accelerate. The size difference is not much, usually less than .005 inches, but it is enough to cause the clicking.

Don't worry that you are not familiar with all of the terms of the different bike parts. You will know all of them before too long if you read this forum regularly. Everyone on here was a newbe at one time or another.

So the clicking is caused by the threads skipping each other? Will this cause potentially serious damage such that I should stop riding with my bike temporarily?

Thanks again 😄

The threads are not skipping each other and I doubt that riding it will do any damage. It is just a looser thread engagement than what you would normally find and they are tapping together slightly under load which is the cause of the clicking. FWIW, a lot of guys use either plumber's tape or grease on their BB cartridges so that they are easier to remove when they need to be replaced. Also, grease can be used in place of the tape, but it does not always work where plumber's tape has always worked in my experience.