Adding this in hopes that it helps someone else since it seems like I’m not the only one to experience it.
I got my SLX Aeroad a couple months ago and love it. I was super concerned about the seatpost but it has been completely silent.
I did notice a creak in the headset area when putting a lot of force on the hoods such as grinding up a steep climb. It was really audible when it was on a trainer as well.
At first I thought it was the headset bearings. I pulled everything apart without disconnecting any hoses and added a bunch of grease to both the top and bottom bearings. This silenced the problem for about 5 minutes but came back promptly after a few test sprints. Even though it didn’t fix the noise, I’m glad I did it because the bearings had no grease on them and were already starting to rust.
I then figured it must be the interface between the cockpit and the fork. In the technical manual, it says that both needed to be covered in carbon paste (the inside of the cockpit and the outside of the fork). When I greased the bearings, it didn’t seem like there was any paste where the two parts insert into each other.
I loosened the headset again, removed all the spacers and then pulled up on the cockpit as far as I could and then got a small paintbrush loaded with carbon paste and applied it to the fork where the cockpit slides on top of. I then lowered the cockpit on it all the way and twisted it a few times to help disperse the paste. I added my spacers and tightened everything up. After a hard indoor session as well as going to the extreme to apply torque to the bars, I still haven’t been able to get it to make any noise.
Just sharing since this cockpit will be more and more prevalent as they keep adding it to more bikes.
by BluFalconActual