The greatest sound in cycling?

My DT350s have become a bit noisy now. I got them for the relative silence and they were quiet. I think just needs a little oil in there.

Cow bells below and the gentle whir of cables and pulleys about you. The feeling of sunshine on your back and the smell of dry alpine countryside.

The way the pitch of your tyre rumble raises slightly as you load them into a berm. Even better once you get the entry spot on and can pump the berm as you hit the apex.

Subtle but very satisfying

And yeah, the rumble of deep sections being ridden at speed.

Hiss of hot discs

Road content
The ‘click’ closely followed by the ‘clack’ of the next cog being engaged with absolute precision on a well set up set of gears. No indexing , no whirring , just a finger flick, and a new gear appears.

The patter of tyres over small roots on loamy soil.

That kind of “thwonk” noise as a single tyre nobble decides it’s going to pop from one side of a root to the other.

The sound of my eldest saying “can we do that last stretch again” or “can we do another lap” 8)

The hum of a silk tub on a velodrome

“of course you can get another bike, I don’t mind”

Klaxon

the sound of absolutely **** all but the sounds of the birds when you stop on a rural bridleway in the middle of no-where… and the sun is shining.

Spokey dokeys.

Cow bells below and the gentle whir of cables and pulleys about you. The feeling of sunshine on your back and the smell of dry alpine countryside.

Good call.

– When your wheels are off the ground
– Nature being very quiet on a winter ride, expect for the odd bird or owl.
– The pitter patter of rain on your kit on a winter rider during a steady climb
– Tyre noise when it digs in on a fast berm
– “Rider left/right” coming up to an overtake during an Enduro 8)
– Sound of the stream cascading down a steep hill during a rest

I’ve always been partial to a bit of chainslap actually. For some reason it’s one of the few sounds that makes it through the fog when I’m focused going downhill. That, and the sound of tyres drifting and skipping through corners.

Spectators at races can be good too. A guy I know always brings his two little girls to heckle the riders.

The gasp of triathletes in an offroad event as you ride up an “impossible” hill while they’re all walking. Aye good swimming, folks – see you at the finish.

EDIT: But really the sound of nature at the top of a big climb / imminent descent.

The sound of a stubborn Tyre snapping onto a rim bead when you have pumped up to 60 PSI already and still going…and were waiting for the inevitable explosion, burst ear drums and getting covered in Stans jiz

jekkyl – Member

the sound of absolutely **** all

Almost, but for me it’s raining falling.

Life’s pretty hectic for me at the moment – work’s a shouty madhouse, home is a wonderous song sung to the tune of kids bounching off the walls, the TV on base, the Radio on guitar and washing machine doing the drums even driving between the two offers little rest as I’ve usually got to be where I’m going before I’ve left and, well it’s 2016 – there’s not such thing as a ‘quiet drive’ anymore – there’s traffic everywhere.

I usually ride with my Mates and it’s great, we’re all busy so we have a bit of debreif and rarely is anyone nagging to keep going because they’ve got to be back for something.

But for true zen I go for a solo ride, ideally in the rain, stop at about whatever my half-way point is and it’s compeltely silent, except the rain.

For me it’s the sound of a jump being landed properly by someone who knows what they’re doing on a decent bike i.e. not me

I agree with the most above. Plus the “pssst! psst! psssst!” sound of the suspension forks…

The sound of deep section carbon wheels when you’re hammering along a nice flat road on a windless day.
Woooosshhhhh, wooooooosssshhhh, wooooooossssshhhhh.

The suspension fork comment reminded me of the noise my then new Romic made in my old Enduro. Proper “Ker-woosh-ker-woosh”. It sounded expensive, like my old Bulb hubs.

The sound your Garmin makes when you switch it off at the end of a race.

Like a lot of others, that moment of silence just before your wheels touch down again.

But also, one noise that I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been privileged to hear is on an early winter morning, still dark, deathly quiet on a silent bike and all you can hear is the tyres crunching on the fresh snow.

That’s a good one, another I like is the sound of leaves rustling on a dry autumn day. Best example of it I can think of is the Rob Warner bit on Chainspotting.

The sound of the tyres compressing into a jump, then the silence, then the sound of clattering metal and breaking teeth on landing 😆

The tick-tick of rotors cooling after a long, steep descent. Don’t know if this is specific to Hope floating rotors?

The sound your gears make on your 15 year old bike when you’ve just replaced everything and got the indexing right again (I imagine); the zizzing sound your Hope Minis make when they’re really working;

and +1 the sound of silence.

I have two:
A decent set of carbon rims, 110psi in the tyres, and that ‘hollow’ sound you hear when riding.
And, that zipp/spin loose gravel exiting the rear wheel whilst hacking the CXer.

The wildlife is always a bonus, but this time of year I’m a huge fan of skylarks and curlews too.

Many of the above.

– the cooling metal noise of Hope floating rotors
– that moment where you’re travelling exactly the same speed as the wind and all falls silent
– those precious few seconds between take off and landing
– the ‘phump’ noise suspension makes as you bounce/skim over a rooty downhill section
– the quiet ‘clck’ of a perfectly timed upshift on the road bike as you add a few more kph

Watch that Raw100 video on the home page. Those tyre sounds are amazing.

The clanging of my knackers on the top tube in a misjudged landing.

Oh, you mean the best noise, not the loudest? 🙂

The scrunch of my fat tyres on deep frosted virgin snow

The whisper of drifting snow in a silent icy haar

The howl of the wind through the fence lines

Think they’ve already been said really so something slightly more obscure – the not quite silence of a fixed wheel drive train when you’re tanking along just on top of the gear.

The first time you hear the TV chopper approaching from miles away on a stagerace after waiting for hours in the sun or rain.

The silence following the initial hiss of a puncture as the latex actually seals it for a change.