Hi All,
I cant work this out for the life of me.
I built a new rear wheel for my tandem a couple of months ago, its an Alfine 11 on an old Mavic 321 ceramic.

I went pretty high with the tension and was happy with the build. spent time on stress reliving the spokes and getting it all bedded in as it is for a tandem with touring luggage. It isnt the pinging noise of bedding in…

But it creaks! more under load… I have added spoke tension to try and cure it. Im now at the end of the spoke threads and at really high tension. It shuts up after riding through a puddle but starts again within a couple of miles.

Im pretty sure its not the spokes bedding in at the hub end. The spokes are under really high tension so I cant imagine it being at the rim end of the spoke.

could the eyelets be the cause? they are double eyelet ed rims and have been sitting in my box of rims for sometime.

any thoughts?

what can I do? I was considering some loctite or glue?

cheers
Jamie

Do you have a spoke tensionometer? If so what force is on the drive/non drive spokes?
What nipples did you use?

spokes rubbing together under heavy load?

Hi Guys…thanks for your input…

yep I have a tensionmeter, the DT one. the spokes are comps (2.0-1.8)… Im up to 1400N so at the upper end of the tension for these spokes. The nipples are the standard DT brass 2mm.

It doesnt sound like spokes rubbing together, its more of a clicking sound…
In my experience the spokes rubbing together sounds different.
cheers

Is the rim welded or pinned?
Im pretty sure the 3xx series rims were pinned and the pins were sport welded in place.
The pin can creak a bit IIRC.

yep bigyinn they are pinned you are correct.
I would have thought this would only happen once a revolution?

Good thought though, another line of questioning..
cheers

I had a mavic rim that clicked every revolution which I eventually tracked down to a loose pin.
It took ages to work it out, because when you took the tyre and tube off to look at it, it didnt make the noise. What was happening was the pressure from the tyre and tube when inflated expanded the rim enough to allow slight movement. I think I just dribbled some glue in there to lock it in place.

If its creaking, you could try spraying some WD40 on the rivets first, then perhaps the hub flanges second to see if that silences them. It’ll only be temporary, but it may put you in the right direction.