I’ve got a creak

On my v1 Tripster. It creaks when pedalling, and I’ve tried everything I can think of. Cranks, chainrings all tight, bottom bracket eventually replaced as a ‘last resort’, frame shows no signs of cracks or anything. Starting to drive me a bit nuts – what have you found as odd causes of a creak?

Headset, stem, wheel skewers etc…

Grease ?

Saddle rails

Had similar once, replaced bb,, regressed and retorqued everything, even stripped and rebuilt the pedal bearings. Nothing made any difference.

Then I got a new pair of shoes, where the cleat sat slightly higher and the creak went. Turns out it was the sole squeaking on the pedal!

pedals are a common one.

Can be many things tho, including gear hanger!

Just fixed one on my bike with a spray of silicon where the saddle rails attached to the saddle front and rear

Does it creak when standing up pedalling or just sitting?

It’s worse when sitting down but not totally gone standing up. After writing the op, I went and checked my seat post and despite thinking I’d recently greased it, it was pretty manky so that’s cleaned and greased. I’ll need to test ride didn’t have chance.

Same as the Pinkster. My comutter shoes squeak like mad on any pair of pedals.

The internal cabling (spits) on my road bike creaked.

PTFE tape was needed on BB shell thread on one bike to silence it.

Loose qr on wheel

My brooks saddles require grease at the front and on the rear of the sprung saddles

A cracked frame that had cracked under a sticker made some odd noises.

Sliding dropouts made a racket unless greased.

Incorrectly tightened cup and cone hubs.

Seat posts needed regular grease on one bike

Seatpost needs carbon anti slip on another

Dropper post internals solved by tightening the collar.

Good luck finding it

Hello,

I had the same on my Pace, stripped everything off the bike re greased and fitted. After months of searching it turned out to be Hope east post clamp. ?

I’ve just solved a two year creak after literally swapping everything on my crank/bottom bracket. And reinstalling probably 20 times.

Was driving me insane.

It’s turned out to be plastic spacers with the rotor crank.  I went back through my stuff and found some rotor metal spacers. Replaced.

(The spacers allow different bottom bracket sizes etc)

Sorted I think.

(Saddles are definitely an issue in this area too. I always check that first.)

I had two difficult to find creaks recently, my mountain bike ended up being the headset cups and the road bike was a bottle rivnut! Headset cups had never been out and looked like they’d been well greased on install so no idea why that started; But the road bike was a weird one as it only did it out the saddle, so seems bonkers that it ended up being a rivnut.

Well, after weeks of trying one thing at a time – pedals, cranks, seatpost, saddle etc – I was about to tackle the mech hanger with rusty bolts. Was already 1 day into a 4 day trip and driven a bit mad by it. A mate turned up for the latter 3 days and said “check your QR is tight”. And blow me… I mean, @somafunk did suggest it in the first reply above so only myself to blame but I’d swear the wheels have been in and out over the months I’ve had it. Or maybe not.

Anyway, I like to close these things off for the next person who has a creak and has already been through everything except the simplest thing to try.

It’s not the worst way to find out your QR is loose.

I just sorted mine too. Turns out the cassette needed the tiniest bit of tightening. Still there’s enough grease on the bottom bracket threads to reproduce that Danny Macaskill underwater riding thing now if i ever feel the urge.

what have you found as odd causes of a creak?

Rear QR – a long time ago – pedals, the main pivot on my FlareMax, rear hub bearings, oh, and the Campag Chorus 11 crank on my road bike which clicked a little in a barely noticeable but irritating way – eventually the lefthand crank arm snapped off due to a crack which began at the Hirth Joint in the middle of the axle and had propagated outwards… Replaced with a set of DuraAce, the ones that Shimano recalled due to self-destructive tendencies. There’s a theme there.

Now contemplating going to Campag Chorus to match the rest of the groupset…

My hardtail is creaking periodically, I think from the headset. It goes if I clean and grease the area then returns over time. I’m going to change it, which is easy enough as it’s mostly bearings, crown race and the bits at the top. Chances are that it’ll turn out to be something completely different, like the bolt holding the Timber Bell in place or something.

A mate turned up for the latter 3 days and said “check your QR is tight”.

I changed my cranks and BB on my Voodoo Wanga one year at Mayhem, the day before the race. It turned out to be the QR, but hey, the bike got new, nicer cranks as a result.

a bottle rivnut!

Similar here.

Not a rivnut as the thread is direct in to a large alloy casting but still bottle cage related.

Before I located it I changed.

Headset bearings and wedge.

Full headset.

Frame bearings.

Frame bearings re fitted twice.

BB.

Crank.

Wheel bearings.

Fork.

Shock.

Removed, cleaned and re fitted to correct torque.

Pedals.

Gear hanger.

Seatpost, saddle rails  and seatpost clamp.

Rear mech.

Frame geometry mutators.

Cable clamps.

Basically every component on or bolted to the frame.

I only removed the bottle cage as it was the one  thing that hadn’t been checked. There’s no way a bottle cage can be responsible for a death creak like that though right…

Straight away I could see fret marks on the cage plate and frame mount.

One small fibre washer that was  laying around on the work bench fixed it.

A fair chunk of time and money to sort that one.