Bike noise, creak, click, creaks, clicks, clicking, pinging sound - help

did your bike combust? did the risers crack?

Wowsa... well no, no combustion. Over tightened stem bolts to an extent and a 25.4 / 26.0 combo were the culprits. Components themselves were solid.

Been trying to track down a front end creak for ages on my orange rx9- changed wheels, stem, bars, cleaned and regressed everything including headset, checked cable stops. Finally took wheel out and pulled on fork legs and one fork leg makes the noise- a crack rather than a creak and flexes a tiny amount.
Is the fork maybe cracked? Can’t see any lines in the paint. It’s an alloy fork.
Or am I just desperate to have found the answer!

I have a ticking, clicking, crankset (Praxis Zayante Carbon S) or bottom bracket (Praxis M30 T47 E.B.), both of which are fairly new.

I know it's one of the two because I've swapped both out and eliminated the noise that way. Unfortunately I don't have another M30 crankset to check whether it's one or the other.

I'm certain it's nothing to do with the front derailleur, because I can hear it when the chain is definitely not anywhere near rubbing. It's not pedals or cleats/shoes - I've swapped them out to test.

It happens once per pedal stroke, with the right foot forward and going down. It's kind of intermittent, loudest when pedalling regularly at 250w+. I think it goes away at a high power, but I could be wrong there, the noise may be being drowned out.

Having test-ridden it a lot, I think I've never heard anything at all when in the big ring, no matter how I pedal. This lead me to conclude the problem is with the small ring/spider interface. The bolts for the small ring have their own threaded holes, they are separate from the big ring bolts. I cleaned and greased the contact points, and removed, greased and carefully re-tightened the bolts many times. I have stuck to the recommended 10nm torque, and tried to get them tightened evenly and gradually. I replaced the bolts with steel ones. I'm not sure what more I can do here? I could try threadlock on the bolts instead of grease. I could tighten the bolts beyond spec. Nothing I have done with the bolts has seemed to have any effect on the noise. When I found one had been a little loose after a test-ride, tightening it had no effect.

If the problem is not actually with the small ring at all, it could be the spider/crank interface (it's bolted on), but I've checked these bolts and surfaces thoroughly.

It could be the crank arm bolt, which is supposed to be tightened to 50nm. I don't have a suitable torque wrench for that, but at any rate, I think I've had it plenty tight.

It could be the bottom bracket, but I don't know what to do with that beyond removing, cleaning the threads, greasing and refitting. I've definitely had it on tight. The bearings seem to move smoothly, and I have the correct dust caps fitted (28mm x 2mm on NDS, 30mm x 1mm on DS)

There doesn't seem to be any unusual wear on the spindle. I can't feel any play in the crankset, but I have wondered whether the gap between the spider and the DS dust cap (filled by a wavy washer) is too large - it looks quite large to me, and the wavy washer is not noticably compressed (should it be?). On the other hand, nothing I have read about my set-up suggests I should need any extra spacers anywhere.

Does anyone have any suggestions for anything else I should try, please?

This is what the wavy washer looks like

1 Attachment

You may have one of the teeth in the small slightly bent and it's pushing the chain against the big, or it may be the chain itself.

My gears are indexed okay (more or less) but downshifting is cause a horrible 'clunk'. Why dat?

Cassette lockring not tight or missing a spacer behind the cassette? Knackered freehub?

Cheers - will check all those things. i did a bit of tightening up of random stuff, plus some more lube on, but ride last night still featured the noise. It's actually more of a 'clang' - kind of reverberating.

I had a similar thing recently and it was because I wasn't running the washer that sits on the freehub body behind the cassette. Is there any play in your cassette at all? It is a 0.5mm washer that you need ... but not on all cassettes? I didn't need one on my shimano road cassette, moved to a shimano mtb cassette and needed a washer on that weirdly. Was tricky to find in the end. Presumably they come with the cassette when you buy new but I bought it off here so didn't I have one.

I need to have a proper inspect of everything and take it all apart but i'm 99% sure the washer is in place and no play in cassette. I'm going to go from 11-42 + hanger extender thingie down to just 11-36 and no extender - it'll be interesting to see if it magically sorts itself after that

Anyone know anything about Deda EM2 "the third metal"? Ive done some reading online with a few people talking about it being good for one season race bikes. My road bike is over 10 years old, light as a feather. I'm hearing the odd creak and wondering whether I need to think about retiring it (and using for turbo).

I know ribble used it for frames, but not seen a huge amount about it as a tubing material.

I got some SRAM OMNIUM's with GXP on my 8bar KRZBER V6 and what brought me here was inexplicable crackling noise on the non-drive side when going uphill (more pressure applied on the pedal) if I drive flat, no problem. I can't figure out why all of a sudden started to happen...
Can't figure out where the noise came from. Tried to tie all the chainring bolts/nuts and nothing...

Anyone with same issue? (due to this issue I came across Hambini video
and not sure if is origin of issue)
Thanks in advance

@Fabzzzz
I had the same noise issue, for a different crankset. 100% sure it was something in the drivetrain.
In the end it was a saddle bolt that needed tightening. Creaking gone.
Creaking are weird.

Nice to know that, I will definitely have to lube all the screws and put it back again. I am very paranoid for little noises - aren't we all? :( ahha

I’ve got the standard creaky crunchy thing happening on my down stroke crakside. Out of the saddle so that narrows it down to EVERY OTHER JOINT ON THE BIKE! I’m going with the tactic of pressing on until it fails somewhere mortally and I get aluminium splinters in my arse while flying into a bin.

Clicking noise from a Pressfit BB.

Now, I know the solution is 'buy a new bike without stupid pressfit' but I don't have time for that. So, any quick way to tell if it's the BB bearings or the interface with the frame or whatever? I'd rather not knock the bearings out and refit them but is that going to be the only way?

Knocking the bearings out would probably knacker them, so you can knock new ones in and see if it fixes it, before that I'd remove, regrease and refit all the other stuff first to see if it's them and check pedal threads and chainring bolts and your saddle, seatpost and rear skewer. If it is the BB then the thread together replacements from wheelsmfg or similar are better.

check pedal threads and chainring bolts and your saddle, seatpost and rear skewer

Add to this rear derailleur, chain, crankset.

Quick way to tell if it’s the BB is to put the bike on the stand and pedal forwards and backwards. If you’re ‘lucky’ you’ll be able to replicate it on the stand; it’s trickier to ID when the clicking only happens under a rider’s weight. Does the clicking happen in both directions? While moving each crank arm? What about without a chain? Any play in crank arms or excessive friction?

If it’s definitely the Bb, quick way to tell if it’s the bearings is to remove the crank arms and feel each bearing cartridge. Replace if not slippery smooth. If bearings are fine, reassemble cranks with care. If they don’t have any play, spin smoothly and still click, you’ll have to replace the bearings.

I realise that’s not exactly quick…

I've already eliminated pedals, chainring bolts, shoes, saddle, seatpost, stem and skewer, etc. I'm not Dammit, this isn't my first rodeo.

I don't want to replace the BB. I've got a Park Tool BB30 bearing remover thing - I assume it works on the outside of the bearing so should leave the innards intact. I don't want to make it worse though. Maybe I could drizzle some shizzle on the outside of the bearing and note any change in noise.

I'm pretty sure it's the bearings but the bearings or the bearing fit to the frame - that's the bit I'm not sure about and I don't have spare bearing to replace with.

Is it BB30 or PF30? Bearings might survive if BB30 direct to frame but no guarantees, if it's PF30 you'll probably fuck up the plastic shell bit.

Sometimes if you have the bike on the floor, stand to the side and lean it away from you, put a load of force through the pedal at the bottom of it's stroke, will probably need to hold a brake on, that will flex the frame a bit but the BB will probably click if there's something wrong with it, go round the other side of the bike and repeat, back again and see if you can narrow down the problem with the sound.

You can feel the bearings with your fingers if you take the cranks off. Do they roll smooth or grainy?
Is it new or old? You can smack them in and out but there's a risk you'll damage the sleeve or the bearings, only do it if you have spares at hand.

I have to take the cranks off to change the PM battery soon anyway so I'm waiting as long as possible then I'll get to check the bearings. I may have a spare but I need to check first.
They're Cannondale cranks in a Spesh Shiv so I presume they're pretty standard BB30 bearings but who knows with stupid bikes.

"OSBB is a narrower version of PressFit 30, sharing the same inner diameter of 46mm, but reducing the shell width to 61 versus the PF30 road standard of 68mm."