Clicks and creaks checklist

take bolts & plate out of my creaking ankle, clean, grease & re-insert

Gaaaaaahhhhhhhh!

I have so many little bolts and shit to remove and clean and grease. Where do I start?! Grrrrr. It was a silent bike for four weeks (if you discount mudguards which have their own little conversations going on) ...

It started after a fiddle with saddle + about 30 miles ... it's gotta be that ...

Hmmm nope.
I think I need to refit the pedals / cranks / BB ...

knees

thanks for the advice

Very useful post / list. Thanks.

Nice list, just tend to fettle till it goes away personally, or swear at the damn thing, that tends to work.

If you're running a splined crank & have recently removed it, check for bits that may have cracked off the crankarm (where the crankarm interfaces with the splines on the bb axle) that may be sitting in there & causing the crankarm to creak / loosen. Have seen this happen when cranks have been removed & re-installed repeatedly.

Check that the right crank is not hitting the front der cage or possibly even the cable tag from the front der. click click click click click click click click.......

Check that the rear Q/R is super tight and possibly strip and lube under the rear der hanger .

swell thread.

Good list. Thank you.

hub
My rear wheel freehub was wobbling, due to shot bearings, and with it the cassette. But it is not only the bearings in the hubs that go wrong.

Changing wheel cured the creaks once. The new wheel, an old Mavic Aksium, which were prone to wobble due to wear to a plastic bush in the freehub, and the cassette started wobbling too, and again the creaks started.

So I changed to a non-wobbling, sturdy Fulcrum Racing 7 rear wheel, but this time the creaks remain! I had already tried changing the pedals and bottom bracket. The creaks happen when pedalling under load. It happens on either ring.

This list seperates the creaks as to when (pedally, cruising) they are heard.
http://forums.roadbikereview.com/components-wrenching/clicking-creaking-sound-noise-checklist-311791.html

Seatpost issue?

Thank you. I will check that out. I have a spare seatpost. But no, upon reflection, it creaks when I am out of the saddle. Sorry, that reply was to user80021.

I bought a new carbon bike frame and had the old one swapped out for "bottom bracket creaks" in the past, but subsequently thought that the creaks they were probably caused by loose chain rings. This frame is old but I have not bashed it like that last one.

The chain has a "missing link" since I failed to install it using the standard Shimano method. I wonder if the chain is to blame.

I could swap the cranks (and pedals) with my other bike.

I hate compact cranks since I spend so much time in my highest gear (which means more stress on the freehub and their demise). The crankset on my other bike is not compact. I hope it is that so I can have an excuse to purchase another crankset.

The quick release idea is interesting. I will tighten it up before I ride home.

Don't just tighten it up, take it out, clean it and also clean the faces of the frame where it attaches (the inside and outside of the dropouts).

@Señor_Bear

Thank you. I will do that. The quick release and hangers are probably very dirty now.

If it creaks in the same place with each rotation of the cranks, its unlikely to be your chain. The bad link will be various ways around the system each time the cranks turn, sometimes not under load so the noise would be irregular with your pedalling.
Quite a few people in the cannondale thread thought they had BB30 creaking issues which ended up being resolved by using better Quick Release skewers

Are you using lightweight skewers?

There seems to be two issues. One is the creak with each rotation of the pedals, the other is a minor irregularity that I feel in the power train that occurs every few turns of the pedal - which it why I thought it might be the missing link (or the missing link about to break). I can have the chain changed.

I am using old and I presume lightweight quick release skewers that came with some Mavik Aksiums, I believe, that I did not change when I last changed my wheels -- I seem to be building up a stock of new skewers! So I can swap them out easily, I think. This would be good news. I never knew that they failed.

This would also explain the busted freehub connection. The freehubs are busted (one worse than the other) and they were wobbly, but I did not think to check whether the busted freehub wobble cause bend in the quick release skewer! This is sounding very plausible!

Thanks very much indeed.

Fit closed cam QR if you have them. If you don't, tighten them up some more.

Missing links are just as strong as any other link (if fitted correctly).

Yeah I don't necessarily mean a broken or bent skewer, just that lightweight ones can often not clamp as securely and allow micro movement of the wheel/creaking.

I am really hopeful about this. My QRs have open cams, they are very old, and they were on broken freehubs. I will check it out soon, tightening and cleaning first, and let you know. Thanks again.

Shimano or Campag QR FTW!

I am still not sure! I happened to have some closed cam quick releases in some Mavick CXP22s which I have yet to use. I swapped those, without taking the wheel off, and I thought perhaps there is less creak. If so then perhaps I should take the wheels off and clean up, so I did and while there was very little dirt on the outside, the inside mech side was like a sandy beach. I wiped that off with a rag and now, it seems the situation is better, but there are sill creaks.

The occasional (every three pedals?) twank is still there but the other creak per-rotation creak seems less intrusive.

Perhaps carbon frames creak when there is give in the drive train which can be caused by a variety of cumulative factors (dirty dropouts, weak quick releases, worn chain, wobbling rear hub).

But anyway, thanks again. I will take off the wheel and really shine up the dropouts. I placed a bid on an ultegra non compact crank and will buy a new chain if I win the auction.

Señor_Bear PhilDAS and Scillu.Suffolk were right
I cleaned out the dropouts with brake cleaner.

I also scored the paint from surface of the dérailleur hanger into which the quick release could not embed (unlike the other three aluminium surfaces of the dropouts themselves), and tightened the hanger bolt.

But basically it was a case of dirty dropouts.

Thanks very much indeed. I junked a carbon frame for this! Two of my local bike shops (rather non-sportive admittedly) did not know what was going on. This needs to be shouted from rooftops. I'll post to the other thread mentioned above.

Also grease the QR... dryness causes creaks