Eureka

Maybe.

I probably wouldn’t be a very good forensic detective or scientific researcher; I’m too impatient to conduct controlled experiments that change just one variable at a time in order to isolate the single cause of this or that effect. Rather, I’m inclined to try a number of things all at once, a strategy my dear departed friend John Sargent used to call “throwing a bunch of shit at the wall and seeing what sticks.”

So, yesterday, completely frustrated by the incessant clicking sound emanating from the Saluki, and exhausted from lying abed the night before planning out various strategies for dealing with it, from stripping off all the components and having the frame repainted, to putting the damn thing on Craigslist for sale, I took two final stabs at rectifying the situation.

First, I loosened the front derailer clamp and liberally sprayed WD40 down inside it against the seattube. Then, I swapped pedals with the X0-1, replacing the MKS Touring models with the MKS Touring Lites.

Both of these were last-ditch, fairly hopeless efforts, but I had to try something.

Yesterday, riding out to Bothell, I almost went mad with the Chinese water torture meets the Telltale Heart experience of that sound over and over again with every turn of the crank so much so that at least twice, I got off my bike growling and near tears—“Oh why, oh why, where is it coming from?”—even kicking the chainstays in the vain hope that maybe a frenzied plea combined with penitentiary discipline was all that was needed.

So, it was without any real expectation of success that I brought my bike back up from the basement after administering to it and set out for a little test ride last evening, but I’ll be damned if the different pedals—or maybe the lubed-up derailer clamp—didn’t result in the result I dared not even hope for: silent pedaling interrupted only by a whoop of joy.

For now, anway.