Tash and I went riding round Richmond Park yesterday, being both in the south of England and so close to London the Park is incredibly flat, however there are some rather nice flowy sections in some of the wooded areas. We found this little kicker below and had a quick play on it.

My bike has been making a rather interesting creaking noises for the last few rides, beginning after the most recent uplift day at CwmDown; with the combination of the famous CwmCarn grit-mud, the dependable rain and my penchant for pressure washers I thought the cause was sure to be premature ball-bearing death, the noise got markedly worse yesterday so I stripped the chainset down when we got back only to find that the BB was fine, however a good few of the the splines on the driveside crank arm had completely crumbled away! Time to start looking for a new crank I think.

My current crankset is a strange beast, initially starting out life as a 2003 Shimano XT model, later coupled with an e-13 DRS and a 38 tooth middle ring. This weird combination results in a dual ring 22, 38 toothed monster, a chain guide and an unbreakable Macrolon bash ring, all mated to a Shimano ES71 hollowtech (old style) BB. Sure it weighs a bit more than the standard issue XT kit but it comes with added advantage that I no longer leave precious big ring teeth sticking in the tree trunks that I so often hit err... lightly brush over, plus I literally haven't lost my chain once since fitting the DRS, not a single time! The whole lot weighs in at 1.15kg, here's a pic of the disassembled constituent parts below:

I am now looking at replacement options, things have of course moved on since 2003 and pretty much everything decent seems to be based on the more modern Hollowtech II BBs so going for that upgrade widens the cranks available to me. I'm currently looking at the 2009 Saint M810-2 crankset which looks absolutely unbreakable and comes with an appropriately frightening pricetag. The saint kit looks great and I've heard mostly good things about it however I wonder if it's a little overkill for me... The fact that I managed to get a 2003 crank, which was aimed mostly at the XC market, to last 6 years by riding downhill, freeride, XC and dirtjumping makes me wonder if I need everything the Saint offers... will have to see. If anyone has any suggestions for replacements then please give me a shout.

EdD