Originally Posted by
noglider
I see hundreds of people on bikes every day, so yeah, I see this stuff daily. Some people are not attuned to their bikes. The most surprising thing is when these people are on high end bikes. I would have expected more awareness there, but I'd be wrong. Lots of squeaky chains on racing bikes.
Lol, my old boss bikes to work sometimes. He was complaining that his bike was more and more making horrible noises, coming from a whole bunch of places. Did he need a new wheel? A whole new bike? Etc. I told him he probably just needed to oil the chain. He looked at me dubiously, like it couldn't possibly be that simple. But he said he'd love to figure it out.
Over lunch I bought some bike chain oil. Walked out with him to his bike at the end of the day, put oil on the chain, enough to cover the whole chain. All of the noise completely disappeared. He gave me the money for the oil and left.
I rode for years just not realizing what the source of the problem was, or thinking it would be complicated to get it fixed. You just don't know. :-)