My freewheel on my singlespeed road bike is making a kind of 'thuck-thuk-ah' nose every time I pedal – it makes me sound like a kid pedalling a Raleigh Budgie 😳

It's a new 'Tensile' 18T trials freewheel on a new Goldtech Hub with a new 1/8" chain and 48T Stronglight chainring. The chainline also looks pretty straight and I have about an inch or so of vertical play in the chain. It's really annoying me. Any ideas what could be causing it?

Cheers.

knackered bearing

nbt, everything's new (and not cheap).

My old Kona Paddywagon made the same noise, reminded me of my Raleigh Striker. I read somewhere it was a common thing on them. Cheap hubs I guess. Sold the bugger anyhoo.

If you are using a special chain link (The one you can undo with your hands) then you could change it for the other type (sorry cant remember which way round this works), that has been known to work in the past, if you are not using a chainlink check for stiff links

Not familiar with Tensile, but freewheels often make varying degrees of noise; if you spin the wheel backwards and watch the chain, can you see the amount of slack varying?.

One sign that it's the freewheel is to coast for a moment then start pedalling again – if the noise changes, it's the freewheel (as it's engaged differently). If this is the case, the noise doesn't seem to hurt; but preferring a quiet bike I went for a White Industries freewheel. Streets ahead of any other I've tried!