I agree. Once these wear down I'm getting some new tires for sure. I have read these bikes will take 700x23c tires. The ones on there are 700x32c. I'll keep them on there for now for the purpose of testing but I will eventually get some nice 23c tires for better speed and less rolling resistance.

Okay, so I delved into the bottom bracket. I have to say I love working on bikes. It's just so simple!

Repair @ 7.5 miles

I'm going to bold anything I consider to be beyond normal maintenance with this bike. I consider what I did today with the bottom bracket to be beyond that. My thoughts:

I found plentiful grease on both the bearings within the bottom bracket, and on the threads. I found the unit as a whole to be serviceable and visually durable enough to last. That doesn't say they will, they just appear to be good enough. HOWEVER, I did find metal shavings within the threads and shaft of the bottom bracket (though none on the bearings), which extremely concerned me. I don't personally think it would have affected the operation of the bearings but I like anything around greased bearings to be clean of anything especially metal shavings. That is why I'm listing this as something beyond normal maintenance and something that SHOULD be done on these bikes to prevent problems.

I repacked the bearings like I would the wheel bearing on a car, that is to say I coated every bearing surface and race with lots and lots of wheel bearing grease. It was smooth before but now it just glides. Very nice. I don't know if it's fixed my "thump" yet, we'll see.

Also turned a couple of screws to keep my chain from over-travelling during shifts. Perfect shifts now.
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