As the title suggests: tell us about your most interesting causes for uncommon sounds/noises coming from your bike. How did you find them?
Let me start:
My Cannondale CAAD 8 once had a unusually loud creaking noise on some rides. Not on every. Most of the time it came when I was pedalling out of the saddle, sometimes just on the road. At the beginning of most rides it wasn't there. After some time it appeared. And after more kilometers it was gone again. I could not replicate it at home. Out of pure desperation I disassembled the whole drivetrain (I left out the bottom bracket, just checked it) – cleaned everything, regreased everything tightened every bolt to spec. nothing changed.
A few rides later I found the issue: My metal bottle cage was cracked on one side. With a full bottle the wires where separated enough to not touch. Going further and emptying the bottle more the wires touched and creaked with every left/ride swing of the bike or sharper corner, bad road etc… when the bottle was close to empty the tension of the wires was strong enough again to close the gap completely -> no creaking. The crux of the story was: it was "second" bottle cage. So only on long rides with two bottles there was a chance of appearing. And when it appeared it was uncomfortably loud, due to the resonance of the thin aluminum down tube.
by jBurn94
3 Comments
My wife’s mtb once had a cling-cling noise on the front rotor only when pedaling fast, at first I thought it was just pad-rotor rubbing each other caused by large rotor’s warpage, so I changed it to a 160mm one (true af) but sound kept hitting. Finally it came out that the front brake needed a bleeding work and after getting rid of air out of the system the noise just disappeared.
After cleaning the bike, thightening every bolt, going to a bike shop (“it’s fine, just ride”), changing the pedals and changing the bottom bracket i found that my crank had a crack. I only found it once it grew enough so that i could reproduce the creak with my hands. it was very hard to see.
spokes on one of the mavic wheels – but only after some riding so not from the start.
headset cap
chainrings from absoluteCRAP, not only did the chain drop quite often they also creak.