On 4/15/07, Ray Homiski <classicbicycle@gmail.com> wrote:
> To my surprise I saw inside the BB shell between the two bearing cartridges
> a load of what I can only describe as tiny metal spheres the size of poppy
> seeds. I mean there was a bunch of them in there. It was packed with them. I
> carefully removed the one side cartridge and brushed them into a plastic
> bag. I then tapped out the other bearing and brushed out more. I then took a
> flashlight and saw even more packed in the chainstays, seat tube and
> downtube. I took a wooden dowel and pushed from the top of the seat tube and
> out came more spheres and a wad of brown crepe paper. My guess is that the
> paper was used to prevent them from going up the seat tube. I then explored
> the downtube from inside the BB and found another wad of the same paper that
> I also removed. Like the last one it was clean at the top but dirty as it
> prevented these spheres from traveling up the tube.
My initial thought was someone put those in there to make noise so that a thief would hear the noise and think "Oh man, this bike is going to break on me, I'd better ditch it." Are you sure the paper didn't have writing on it that says "This bike stolen from...."? :)
Eric Phillips
Southfield, MI
USA