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I'm always fixing creaks.
New bike creaks, BB knackered (tip: don't use a gusset branded one) put a new Praxis one in and creaks after 36 miles. (This is despite the fact that the Praxis has been good in other bikes.)
Endlessly chasing noises. WTB saddle rails creak replace saddle with another brand after years of loyalty , all quiet, then something else starts up.
I'm starting to wonder do I over clean and maintain my bikes? I have periods of silence for about a week. And then something else starts. Got most creaks down to a fine art but they often come back.
Not cheap bikes too.
This is not a specific help me with the creak question, more rant of the creak never going away and it moving around the bike to a new location.
BB, headset and bearings etc either creak due to low quality, poor fitting, poor frame tolerance, over zealous use of a powerful degreaser or jet washing.
Things like saddle rails/bottle cage bolts/stems and bars can usually be solved by de-torquing, cleaning and then torqing up to the correct tolerance
In the workshop we mostly find creaks etc are due to strong degreasers & owners blasting all the grease out with the pressure washer and leaving the exposed bearings wet to corrode
It's good you can nail it like that. I don't use a jet washer but do use a clean by air system probably with too much loss of degreaser, but is way less pressure than a standard pressure washer.
Do you offer a creak removal service? Cash pound notes waiting.
Although one caveat is I'm talking about relatively new bikes!
Aww man don't even get me started, I've been chasing a creak for weeks now. Started with the wheels getting tensioned and trued I thought that would be it, nope. I've stripped, re-greased and re-torqued every damn bolt I can think of.
I eventually gave up and took it to Willy Bain this week(respected mechanic, and it was he who tensioned the wheels) it will be going back again this morning...still creaks.
I can't ride a creaky bike, I just cannot.
Once I found the creak was emanating from a little cable tie keeping the cables tidy at the front. Another time it was the cable end rubbing in the stay. This was after replacing the BB and the pedals. Creak chasing can be expensive. My most recent creak was loose spokes. Another time a lil bit of grease under the mech hanger cured it.
My Gusset EXT24 BB has been bomb proof for over 2 years and it's now on a fresh set of bearings. Just saying...
My Gusset EXT24 BB has been bomb proof for over 2 years and it's now on a fresh set of bearings. Just saying...
400 miles, lots of water inside.
Not an external one.
I have found that often creaks are due to dirt getting into the various contact surfaces on the bike that operate under load, bearings, seat rails, suspension bushes etc. It's the grit moving under pressure making the noise. I usually find a strip down, wash and wipe clean and all is quiet again. It's amazing the nooks and crannies in which a tiny bit of dirt or grit can work it's way into a cause the most annoying creaking. Alas with winter ahead and wetter riding in store, it's that creaky time of year. 🙁
UK winter + rigid SS = few if any creaks.
UK winter + rigid SS = few if any creaks.
Done many times. In reality only a cassette short of being geared these days.
You still have hubs,BB,headset,seat etc.
Yeah, but much easier to keep on top of creaks with no bearings & bushings.
Hope hubs, decent integrated headset, well greased pedals, greased saddle rails. Sorted 😀
Can't argue with that.
Just spent a couple of months decreaking my rigid SS funnily enough...
Creaks are worse on an SS too as you're pretty much guaranteed to be out of the saddle and hooning on the bars half the time.
OP I seem to spend most of my time creak chasing as well. Must be a combination of bad luck with components or just being too sensitive! I know riders who're out doing many more miles than me on bikes I personally couldn't stand to ride for the creaks and general lack of maintenance. I kind of envy them to be honest!
IME about 50% of creaks are pedals, or now what the rider thinks they are at least. Only this week I had a bike where the owner swore blind it was the B.B. creaking, but after tightening the rear QR, greasing the seatpost and cleaning and greasing the pedal threads it was silent, the noises got less after each of those steps. He still didn’t believe me though, until I said I’d be happy to charge him for a new B.B. if he really wanted me to! 🙂
Creaks are worse on an SS too as you're pretty much guaranteed to be out of the saddle and hooning on the bars half the time.
That's a very good point, less gentleness exhurted on a single speed.
Well the bike is from it's second visit to Willy Bains cycle repair shop, and guess what, it's still there. I'm completely exasperated and fed up with this, have no idea what to do next, except sell the bike, give up riding and join mumsnet.
I find if I know where a creak is coming from it doesn't bother me much. But when I can't locate It, stress beyond stressful things.
OK apart from all the obvious bb, seat clamp, pedal thread creaks these have occurred to me and have been a pain to trace:
Gear cable ferrules (plastic) rotating in the frame (little bit of ptfe Lube or similar solved this)
Zip ties around cables / brake hoses
Brake mount to frame interface (bit of copper slip works well here)
Chain ring bolts and chainring to crank interface. Remove clean and grease well. Bit of thread lock on the chainring bolts. These can creak if not evenly tensioned tight enough.
Headset spacers. Worse if mix carbon fibre and ally. Remove and grease.
I have had noises from headset and the crown race before if dry.
Dont completely rule out a crack in the frame somewhere. My genesis core 40 developed a creak and after two complete rebuilds and plenty of head scratching I could see a slight (and I mean very slight) line at the bottom of the seat stay to bb interface. Removed a bit of the powder coat to find a crack at the bottom of the weld. Pretty new frame too.
Good luck
buy a new bike, it's the only way to be sure
p.s you have put anti seize on the pedal threads i take it?
I too have a massively frustrating squeaky creak on my CDF and have just dropped in into Sprockets to see if Dave can find it. Happens when pedalling under load, and is a rhythmic cyclical noise, seated or standing. So far i have : removed and regreased pedals and chainring bolts, replaced BB, removed cassette, cleaned feehub, fitted new cassette lock ring, removed and lubed jockey wheels. My bets now are that it is a hub bearing or something else in there, as I can't see what else it can be....
Hoping Sprockets have more luck than me at finding it...
A lot of people ride around with their rear QR far too loose; it should be done up ****-off tight, which is an old English engineering term meaning almost too tight to tighten by hand.
I feel your pain ! My Process has been like that on and off for months. All usual suspects checked odd thing is it would be OK for about 5 rides after coming back from the menders then start again ? The other odd thing is I put the original back wheel in for a trip to Canada land with climbing that's not possible here , silence for the whole trip !Came back got Hope /Stan's wheel stripped and returned plus spokes re tensioned , 2nd ride the return of Mr Creaky !!!!!!? LBS mechanic has a theory that Hope wheel is stiffer and is highlighting a problem somewhere else ????? Last ride was silent , how long for ?
A lot of people ride around with their rear QR far too loose; it should be done up ****-off tight
Not with dropper posts it shouldn't, and I'd bet that over 3/4 of the MTBers on here now use them.
QR with a dropper? Whats the point of that?
A lot of people ride around with their rear QR far too loose
Not with dropper posts it shouldn't
I assumed he meant wheel QR?
Who rides with QRs these days? I thought we were all on thru-axles 😉
On the two of my bikes that have old school QR dropouts I use Halo hex skewers, much less faff, and a bit more rigid...and you know when they're done up properly!
QR with a dropper? Whats the point of that?
For when the dropper doesn't drop far enough?
I assumed he meant wheel QR?
Who rides with QRs these days? I thought we were all on thru-axles
I'd already forgotten that anyone had anything other than thru-axles!
Happens when pedalling under load, and is a rhythmic cyclical noise, seated or standing. So far i have : removed and regreased pedals and chainring bolts, replaced BB, removed cassette, cleaned freehub, fitted new cassette lock ring, removed and lubed jockey wheels. My bets now are that it is a hub bearing or something else in there, as I can't see what else it can be....
This is pretty much where I am, ..i'm sure its coming from the back-end and aside from the hub and thru-axle(i've though about changing from the Stanton Axle to a Rockshox Maxle or something)there isn't much left it can be. Although Willy did say the bearings were fine, not perfect but fine.
Just another one to throw into the mix - the rear disc brake pads (if you have discs).
I had an infuriating noise which sounded for the world like a chain rubbing the front mech under load. Cue lots of fiddling with barrel adjusters while riding along trying to adjust it out.
Turns out a mechanic had dunted the underside edge of one of my pads when putting the wheel back in, creating enough of a burr that it rubbed off the spokes of the disc rotor when the back end of the bike flexed under pedalling.
Took me aaaaaaages to figure it out 👿
The rear wheel qr/bolt thru thing on my Kona creeks it its not FT.
Akers - Member
I have found that often creaks are due to dirt getting into the various contact surfaces on the bike that operate under load, bearings, seat rails, suspension bushes etc. It's the grit moving under pressure making the noise.
I posted a similar thing in another thread the other day.
The creak that frequently emanates from the bb of my inbred is just dirt getting into all the I,interface surfaces. A 10 min disassemble and clean puts it back to silent running for several months..
My Stumpjumper FSR is pretty silent apart from some rotor chinking.
Front bush (oo-er) on the rear shock dries out and creaks on my Spitfire. Sounds like it could be coming from any part of the bike tbh and is annoying.. I either oil it or tip water on it to ease it's creaking.
creaking saddles/posts are what's driving me to distraction at the moment 😈
I'm not sure which one will get fixed with the bag of hammers first ...... The Thomson/WTB combo or the Thomson/Brooks combo 👿
I either oil it or tip water on it to ease it's creaking.
Ha yes I think the only time my bikes have been completely silent are when I have just ridden through a massive deep puddle or a fjord.
My bikes are generally pretty silent (well in comparison to the noises coming from the lard engine!) but occasionally get the odd squeak that turn out to be things like a dry QR skewer. Not a serial bike swapper so my bikes all have rear QRs 😀
This reminds me to undo, grease saddle rails (as in what should have been done prior to sale of my new top end bike or any end for that matter) and tighten to about right torque.
Also spray or drop a bit of oil into the bit where the rails join the saddle. I've had nasty creaks from that before.
So to grease as well as a drop of 3in1 yeah?
Thomson/WTB
Never had a problem with Thomson but WTB , was my saddle of choice but not any more.
And there's no fix as far as I know , the rails just start to go where they're glued in, and what's worse it can sound like the bottom bracket.
Years of it.