Noises and encounters

I went out cycling yesterday. It was colder than I thought, I was dressed for summer. But that was still okay. Yeah, look at me comitting two of the road cycling sins: sneakers and tennis socks - AAAAAH! One day I'm gonna get the proper shoes, but to be honest I am not in a rush. I get off the bike quite often anyway and I am overall more on the chill side, not a competitive racer or anything. Sure I wanna get faster, but I also want to enjoy myself and look at the nature, take some pictures and have a good time :)




There was something that dragged the cycling experience though: the annoying noise came back. It has been there before, I never figured out what it was, but after a good cleaning it disappeared again.
When I managed to eliminate the noise, it was by coincidence. I tried finding out step by step first. I thought it came from the front somewhere, so I started cleaning around the fork, front wheels and cockpit. Anywhere parts could cause friction or grinding on some sand that got into small spaces. But nope, that didn't change anything. I am pretty sure it's nowhere at the saddle. I suspected one of the cables for a while, they are wired through the frame and one of them makes a clicking sound when the handlebar stem is turned to the right. That is because the cable is hitting the frame from the inside. So I thought maybe with a bump in the road and other small shocks it makes a noise. But that's not it either.

I knew that noises often seem to come from the bottom bracket, but I thought that wasn't my case because it sounds like it is coming from the front. Yesterday though I started to doubt that listening ability of mine. After all it might come from the bottom bracket or the pedals somewhere. Now I don't think I can take it apart to clean it properly because I am lacking the tools. But still I'm gonna try to clean it as well as I can today and get dirt out, that is probably hiding. That's my mission for today.

What else I want to mention about yesterday's tour - because an annoying noise isn't all there was - is that how nice it is to be greeted by other cyclists. Even though I always go out alone it makes me feel like I am part of something and it's just nice to have some friendly intereaction. And when I was standing on the side of the street a cyclist who passed by asked if everything is alright. This is not the first time and it's really good to know that there are nice people out there who show concern and are willing to help :-)