To cut a loooong story short been struggling with a constant front end creak. Almost like a twig snapping, a quick single creak heard under compression.

Bike is a 2014 Spitfire, Pikes, Hope headset.

After a lot of compressing forks/removing brake pads, taping cables to frame etc etc I came to the conclusion after a couple of posts on here and after speaking to others that there’s a strong possibility that the Pikes were to blame.

Sent them back to Sram via my LBS where I purchased them from. Sram sent them back saying that they are fine. Bugger.

LBS kindly offer to have a quick look to see if they can find anything, so I built the bike back up and left it with them. They had a look and thought it was the stem after swapping bars/stem etc, I went to collect the bike with the loan stem fitted but the same noise was still there.

LBS came to the conclusion that the only possible thing left it could be was that the headset was causing the problem. When I first stripped the front end a week or so ago the bearings felt awful but after a quick clean they didn’t feel too bad, the upper bearing had quite a bit of up/down play which I understand shouldn’t be a problem as it relies on compression and after speaking to Hope they confirmed this is normal. LBS gave me another upper bearing prior to them seeing the bike to try foc but the creak persisted. Hope are sending me a lower bearing so I’m kind of pinning my hopes on that curing the problem.

LBS have suggested it could be a facing/cup issue. I’m fairly certain (and LBS agree) that the headtube appears as though it has been faced prior to the cups going in (fitted by frame supplier). Cups are also in nice and snug against the headtube. They advised it may be worth removing the cups and refacing the headtube.

If you’re still reading this and haven’t fallen asleep, is it worth removing the cups and refacing or is there anything else I can try? Everything that has been removed and refitted has been cleaned and greased to within an inch of its life.

One thing I did notice is that the LBS tightened the headset a lot tighter than I would, I normally just use the ball end of the allen key and tighten until all the slack is taken up similar to car wheel bearing. Do I need to add a bit more preload?

Big shout out to my LBS too, spent a lot of time they didn’t need to trying to help me foc.

Dd you try flexing the lower legs with no wheel In
and bike upside down? I’ve swapped my pikes now and my noise has disappeared!!!!

Try flexing the lowers with no wheel in and I bet you get the same noise, rock one leg froward as you rock the other leg back

My click has now disappeared and I’m 5 rides in on new forks and still no noise

I’m waiting to hear back from sram and if they send mine back saying they are fine then I will be sending them off again, as they replaced them last time for exactly trhey same thing

I set my hope headset up the same as with the pikes so if it wasy headset it would have done the same on fitting these forks, if it comes back then it’s something else, but at the moment new forks in and no noise that was there all the time before swapping them

Or see if your lbs will stick a different set of forks in just to confirm

How much force are you using?

Tried the twisting legs approach but a voice in my head reminds me how much they were before I twist even more! I’m not exactly holding back but I’m putting a decent shift in.

You don’t need loads of force just push one leg as you pull the other, the legs can take a fair force don’t forget it’s what they are built for, if it’s the forks you will hear it from doing this method

When I put new forks on I tried doing the push/pull method just to check all forks didn’t do it and they didn’t make a sound with the same force

Just tried again, bike upside down wheel out and it’s a no go. Will creak if I hold the bb shell and push the forks hard away from me. 100% headtube area, whether its forks or not I don’t know.

I usually find that the place the creak is occurring is usually somewhere different to where the noise seems to be coming from…

No go? As in no creak?

Take wheel out , bike upside down, face the forks, stand feet on bars to stabilise bike then push/pull on the lowers you need to keep the front end still as no parts are moving then

Mane it’s not your forks but it sounds exactly the same as the noise I had on mine

I kinda knew it could only be the forks as if swapped the headset to a hope one and the click was still there with new headset in

Funny cos sram swapped mine last time and even told me they were creaking at CSU too, perhaps your lbs didn’t tell them what you thought was wrong? Id send them in again and tell lbs to tell them that they are creaking at CSU and can they look into that

Sorry, I meant there’s no creak when I pull/push on the legs.

Will try again tomorrow (just put it away) standing on the bars as tbh the bike was moving as I was flexing the forks.

Thanks for your input!

try it with your feet pressed on the bars the do the forward/backward motion on the legs, if its the forks this will make the same noise

I could replicate the exact same noise with very little force

ive had the noise before albeit about 100x louder before, but the noise on the last pair was replicated just the same way as above

all I can tell you is ive swapped the forks and the noise is gone completely, absolutely nothing else has changed just the forks, and ive had 5 silent rides since

when are you getting the noise? all the time? just descending? just climbing over roots/rocks etc? or just compressing the forks?

if your lbs is great just ask them to bung a set of new forks on in the workshop and if its the forks then you’ve got the answer, if its the same then I really have no idea

Stem – face plate bolts or maybe a crack ?

Is there a crack in the frame somewhere ??.

Take the headset cups out and check them for cracks. I have cracked one hope headset and snapped another clean in half.

Thanks.

Just had a quick look over the frame, can’t see any obvious cracks. Will have a proper look at the weekend when I have a closer look at the cups.

Leaning towards the headset as it often makes the noise lifting the front wheel off the floor or letting the front wheel turn side to side under its own weight.

set the bike upside down n make it creak, spray WD40 very carefully into handlebar connection, stem connection, where headset sits in headtube, working your way upwards. Give it a few minutes between spraying n making it creak. When the noise goes way you have found the cause. If it doesn,t go away then its internal.

Reet.

All advice above taken and tried thanks, creak still there.

No cracks in the cups or frame that I can see. Stripped it all again, cleaned and greased again and replaced the lower bearing. No joy.

Turned the bike upside down, front wheel out, maxle back in. Sat on the bb shell with the big rig up my crack (oohh errr), feet on grips and as I push the forks forward it creaks and as I release them it creaks again. Same as I pull them towards me.

It’s not as they compress it’s as the forks flex backwards and forwards. Starting to believe it’s the forks again.

Need to try another pair of forks to confirm one way or another. Mrs bluearsedfly will be home soon so I’m going to try to convince her to sit on my ring while I have a listen!

Just had a couple of hours on it, swapped the forks, stem and bars. The creak is still there.

100% coming from the headtube. Both bearings have been replaced so I have to assume it’s the cups. Looks like I’m going to have to knock them out and inspect them.

Presume it’s just a case of grease them and pop them back in if they look ok or is it worth swapping the headset for something new altogether?

If you’ve got another headset to hand maybe try that first?

Afraid not.

Pilfered the wifes inbred for parts, had to use a crown reducer though as her forks are straight and mine are tapered.

This may sound daft, but suffered for ages with a creak. Turns out that everytime I took everything apart to find out what was wrong, I kept slightly misaligning the crown race against the bottom bearing when putting the fork back in. Not even loads of pre-load got it to sit right which is why I was scratching my head for about a week.

Thanks, will have a look for it.

How did you misalign them out of interest? I thought with them both having a tapered face they would self center.