I'm happy to say that, after the false start with the headset and stem, tonight I have eventually broken my putting-things-on-the-bike duck. I got greased up and put the bottom bracket in.
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| My bottom bracket! |
From the perspective of this amateur, a bottom bracket is to your cranks (the arms that your pedals attach to) what the headset is to your handlebars, namely a set of bearings that ensure nice, smooth, consistent movement.
The bottom bracket I bought, a Shimano Tiagra model, comes in two parts. One screws into each side of the bottom bracket shell (that's the threaded hole that the bottom bracket goes into). It's an external bottom bracket - never having seen any other kind, I'm not especially able to tell you what other types you can get, or why you'd want them.
Actually, writing this blog took longer than doing the fitting. I'm fairly confident I've done a proper job without damaging the threads in the shell. What bit goes in the right and left side are clearly marked, as are the directions of rotation to fit them. Before I started work, I did my usual scouring of the web for instructional videos, and this one from BikeRadar was about the best I found. (It's the final video on the page, Install An External Bottom Bracket.)
Aside from a little bit of patience, some grease, and the bottom bracket itself, the only other thing you need is a bottom bracket spanner to tighten the two parts up properly. It's probably important to buy the spanner that fits your bracket - I think the Shimano brackets have a standard fitting, so I was able to pick up a spanner from Wiggle pretty easily and cheaply.
The rest of the assembly needs to wait until I get my wheels sorted, which I'll be doing at the weekend.
Stay tuned.
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