Anyone else get unreasonably stressed by a creaking bike?

Riding home today on a silent bike has made me realise how stressed I get when my bike is creaking.

In the past I’ve bought a whole new bike when I couldn’t isolate a creak in my old one (probably the pressfit BB).

On my commuter bike I knew what the creak was, because I was riding the drivetrain into the ground. And yet it still stressed me out.

There’s nothing quite like a silent bike, anyone else find a noisy one unreasonably stressful?

It doesn’t stress me because I’d just fix any creak.

Have just built a new bike, with gears, it’s silent. Love it. On any bike a creak will only last one ride until I sort it – helps that I mainly ride single speed.

Can’t handle a creaky bike for sure.

Currently have one Grindy/noisy bike, but that somehow is not so bad.

Have one silent bike. It’s amazing.

I don’t mind creaking, but it has to work ‘properly’ that stresses me out if [for instance] the gears don’t move as quickly as I want, or skip, or the dropper is slow..have to sort those out. 

meh, had a hardtail that creaked from somewhere up the front. didn’t bother me. stopped creaking after the headtube came off the front triangle…

It doesn’t stress me because I’d just fix any creak.

☝️

Aye, same as them. No bike should creak for 2 consecutive rides

Nope, nothing unreasonable about it. That stress is there to motivate you to fix it before the next ride.

meh, had a hardtail that creaked from somewhere up the front. didn’t bother me. stopped creaking after the headtube came off the front triangle…

Yep my old RFX did the same. Went mad trying to find the creak. Every bushing replaced, was actually a relief when the seat mast broke and the creak stopped.

I had a creak for months and swapped all sorts to try and resolve it. Even had my local shop have a go… It was a special frame, bought with an inheritance when my Nan died, and I began to wonder whether it was just a fact of ownership that titanium frames creak. You cannot believe the relief when I solved the problem, which was the derailleur hanger being loose. Been creak free since and I no longer regret buying it!

Nope.

I do enjoy it if someone else is getting stressed out about the noise my bike makes though 😀

I can’t cope, would probably end the ride early and certainly wouldn’t set off until fixed. 

I’ve got a minor creak on my seat post got some crazy elastomer thing in it which occurs occasionally, I’ve been thinking of fixing it but tbh the parts are pricey, its basically replace the whole seatpost but i’m just thinking that its possibly better to keep the money for the next bike and keep the creaky one for when people come over 🙂

My new Canny Scalpel seems to have a nice creak I think its going to be a silly one like seatpost clamp to loose or the saddle rails/saddle,or dust,it is presshite but its totaly silent when you stand and peddle.

It does irk having a creak thou.

Oh yes.

I actually think I have that psychological condition where you have an irrational reaction to certain noises. I can barely bring myself to ride a creaking bike and the relief when it’s fixed makes it feel like a whole new bike.

All five have to be silent !

I’m doubting there’s any orange owners on here, they install the creak at the factory.

And for me, it depends, expensive carbon fancy pants bike, that’ll only creak for one ride.

Shagged out steel rat bike, that’ll creak until what ever is creaking breaks, gets replaced or wears the faces on either side of the creak away.

My old inbred creaks. The front mech sometimes needs a kick to get it to shift. The mismatched Shimano brakes need a wee pump up each ride to stop the lever pulling to the bars then they’re fine.

I love that bike especially with all the faults / quirks due to my lack of maintenance on it.

My foxy is loved however, especially as it’s on its 2nd front triangle and 3rd rear triangle (now with a 2014:front and 2017 rear)

@mert

Shagged out steel rat bike, that’ll creak until what ever is creaking breaks, gets replaced or wears the faces on either side of the creak away.

Now that’s what I thought, it’s my commuter bike and so why spend money on it until it’s absolutely needed.

But now that I’ve fixed it and it’s creak free, I’ve realised how much it was stressing me out to ride it.

Headphones.

In my head a creaky bike feels slow, especially if it’s a pedaling induced creak.

I can’t ride a bike that is creaking or clicking. As soon as the ride finished I’d be working out and fixing said creak / click asap.

My mate’s bike often sounds crap – when I’ve ridden it on a few occasions you can feel resistance / grinding in the drivetrain 🤮

At Dyfi bike park his left crank arm actually fell off lol

Absolutely hate it! I came to MTB from BMX which was always dead silent so any noise still does my head in. MTB always seems to develop new creaks or clicks every ride or so – makes me want to ride a single speed hardtail again!

@jamesoz

In my head a creaky bike feels slow, especially if it’s a pedaling induced creak

That’s how I feel too. Every creak is wasted watts. Even if it’s not, it’s dispiriting.

My LBS had a titanium Moda road bike built up as a winter training bike in for service to find a persistent creak. It was almost unrideable it was so embarrassing and annoying.

He had pretty much every part off it, the BB had been out twice, everything re-greasef yet still it made this creak every pedal rev.

Frame looked immaculate, no visible cracks.

Anyway eventually he took it down to the bare frame and when you stood on the chainstays and flexed the top tube, the creak was right there so something in the frame had cracked.

Sent it off as a warranty claim but it took the shop many hours of trying everything before it got to that point.

I’m the same though, can’t stand a creaky bike. Even the noise of a dry chain is horrendous which is why I’m now a convert to wax lube.

Yep, have spent many an hour tracking down creaks. The last one turned out to be the sliding dropouts on my cx bike. I’d replaced the bottom bracket, wheel bearings and greased/lubed everything else but to no avail. 

I slid the dropout to its furthest position, added a washer and added liquid threadlock which has cured it 🤞

I think everyone one has a riding buddy who is blissfully unaware how aweful their bike sounds. 😬

It amazes me that a lot of the creaks are the saddle or seatpost. One time my seatpost was creaking even when out of the saddle! 

Normally, I go creak hunting, think I’ve got it, then it restarts five miles into the next ride. So instead of being annoyed by creaks, I’m just paranoid about them coming back.

@dudeofdoom My Cannondale Scalpel has had a few creaks, I’d first look at the drive side dropout, I’d then use threadlock to reinstall it.

Unfortunately the stock bearings that Cannondale use are crap so they’ll need replacing relatively soon. Sorry.

Shimano took bike creaks to a whole new level with their bonded cranks. They must have drove folk to distraction. Especially when you very probably couldn’t see any damage, until it sheared in two.

Shagged out steel rat bike, that’ll creak until what ever is creaking breaks, gets replaced or wears the faces on either side of the creak away.

FWIW the rat bike currently has no creaks, in fact, none of my bikes have any creaks right now.

It’s mostly me.

(The rat bike used to sound like Windy Millers Windymill. Until i replaced almost everything with spares from another retired bike. I should probably refrain from calling it a rat bike seeing at it’s all XT/Fox/Easton/Hope now. Only “rat” bits are the frame and seatpost.)

I dropped into a mini, but very steep sided bomb hole last night. The mud filling the bottom slowed me so that I didn’t have enough momentum to clear the rooty lip on the exit. So, I had to pretty much stand on the pedals and give it everything to drag myself out. The very, very loud ‘Ping’ my lovely old Orange 4 gave out at that moment worried me enough that tonight will be spent in the garage checking my spokes, chain and then frame, just to be sure!

They do drive me mad, but I’ll happily take a wee creak over something much more expensive!

C.

All these stories about creaks being due to cracked frames are not helping my creak neurosis. 🤣

My fears of creaking bikes are not entirely unfounded, the last 3 instances have been due to cracked Ti frames, the last one had processed 2/3 of the way around the downtube just behind the headtube and was one bumpy downhill away from a catastrophic failure and probable injury. So I don’t consider being stressed about such issues unreasonable.

Not even a little bit. If it’s creaking a lot then I’ll look into it but otherwise… meh.

I hate a noisy bike, which is ironic as I used to race downhill in the 2000’s, and have also owned an Orange, so am familiar with the sound of a bag of spanners.

When I watch footage like Vital RAW or a course preview I realise how much bikes have come on and how quiet they can be these days.

So as well as creaks, I chase knocks, taps and rattles and run relatively quiet hubs.  I love being able to just hear my tyres working for grip.

I’ve had a cracking creak, almost felt through the frame, stood or seated or even just side loading cranks when not on the bike.  It was cured by greasing the very bottom of the inserted seatpost.

Had one that was cured by removing and cleaning the replaceable dropout.

And a knock that turned out to be an oversized bearing seat on a full sus – warrantied.

This thread just prompted me to strip my creaky saddle. I found some rust on the rails so I’ve coppa slipped all contact points on the rails and clamp and squirted PTFE into where the rails enter the shell.  Hopefully silence will be restored!

I can’t stand a creaky bike. Recent one was creak that appeared within first minutes of any ride, worse when standing. I removed/refitted headset, cranks, BB, seatpost. Checked bar/stem interface. Checked chainring/crank interface. Tried different pedals and cleats. Checked torque on all pivot bolts etc. Creak still there. Ordered replacement bearing kit – it’d been ridden a lot for over two years so thought that was worth doing anyway.

It was only when I removed the rear shock to strip down the frame that I found a worn shock bushing FFS. Simple as that. Strangely there was zero play/movement if you lifted the rear end by the saddle (my usual gauge for a worn shock bushing). Replaced the bushing, creak went away simply as that. Arrrghhh.

I don’t like it and always fix it asap. Stressed? probably not. More a bit wary as both my past frame failures had a creak of doom just before.

Three ‘creaks’ I’ve chased in recent years:

1) Very random tick which was induced by either bumps or certain handlebar movements/getting out of the saddle = the little silver metal toggle on the lanyard of my Exposure light hitting the top tube 🙄

2) Disconcerting ‘loose’ sort of metallic thunk over certain bumps, sounded very worryingly like a broken frame tube! Has occurred more than once and every time I forget that the LAST time it was because I had transferred my pump + multi-tool from my back pocket to my empty top-tube bag which had previously only held mini-soreen and assorted snacks. Unsurprisingly every bump caused the heavier metal tools to ‘thunk’ off the top tube.

3) Reeeeally nasty creaking sound when out of the saddle or just grinding up a hill/accelerating on my singlespeed. Went through all the obvious bits and then turned my attention to less obvious areas, even resorted to red loc-titing cartridge bearings in the hubs after noticing how easily you could pop them in and out. Turned out I had overtightened the long bolt through the crown/steerer that held the canti up-hanger and mudguards on and had obviously caused a portion of the weld to come loose internally or something. New forks sorted it (and amazingly Wiggle agreed to warranty them and since the original forks weren’t available they just refunded me for some forks I had bought elsewhere).

Very random tick

I had this for years on every bike I ever had. Had me baffled because it wasn’t always there, but sometimes always was regardless of the bike I rode. Turned out it was the zip puller on one of my jackets 😳

My Bizango, however, has now developed the most horrendous creak. No issues with gearing so I suspect the BB is in need of attention replacing. Unlike some folks, the thought of attempting this fills me with fear 😂