Stupid Is As Stupid Does

If you're bored with my bottom bracket incompetence, surf away before it's too late!

If, however, you take great joy in the misfortunes of others, have I got a post for you.

So I'd had issues with a cross-threaded BB cup (that I now know I can blame on Former Neighbor Steve for polluting my garage with his bad cross-threading juju), but I'd stolen a cup from another bike that (I thought) was compatible and (I thought) fixed the problem. Did a few rides on the bike, including a fast (for me) out-and-back 26-miler to Cumming, IA Thursday night. No creaks, no rattles, smooth spinning.

Then I saddled up for my commute home yesterday. Got about five blocks from work when things started feeling wrong. Pedals were wobbly underfoot, and each turn of the cranks made this awful grinding sound. Oh crap.

Stopped, assessed the situation, and realized that either a) the cup I thought was compatible actually wasn't, or b) I was too timid after the cross-threading adventure and didn't torque the cup down hard enough. Said cup had backed its way out of the frame far enough to let the cartridge BB rattle around (causing the wobbly feeling) and grind the chainring into the shiny, formerly-pristine metallic brown repaint on my right chainstay (thus the awful sound).

No way I can fix that by the side of the road, and no way I can ride it home. And my cell phone barely has enough juice to make one call.

In the words of the poet Homer, "DOH!"

I managed to get a quick "myphoneisdyingpleasecomepickmeupatthecornerofsecondandMLK" call to my wife and get rescued, but it was NOT how I'd hoped my day would end.

Today, I put in a different cup and torqued that sucker to "gorilla." We'll see if that does the trick.