Those annoying noises....

[betty swollocks]

...the squeaks, creaks, pings, clanks and clicks which drive you nuts and can be so difficult identify and eliminate.
So much depends on whether, everything is tight, well-adjusted and lubed.
As an experienced bike mechanic over many years, I've solved quite a few of these riddles, but this one had me buffaloed .....until today!
It was an irregular 'dink' and appeared to be coming from the b/b shell area of a new bike I've just put together.
But, chain was lubed, cranks were on ok, b/b was fine (hollowtech - can't really go wrong), pedals on tight and no play. Chainring bolts tight, spokes taut and not rubbing.
So I looked elsewhere and a moment of inspiration made me dismount and tighten up the saddle clamp bolt one quarter turn.
Gone: no more 'dink'!
Just the Rohloff doing its thing, the whirr of the chain and the swoosh of tyres on wet road and another addition and solution to my repertoire of unwelcome bike noises.

 

[kyuss]

I once stripped and rebuilt my entire drivechain twice over a couple of days, BB and all, to try and get rid of an annoying pinging sound on every driveside downstroke. Two days after the second strip down, on my way to work I found the culprit. The undone stud on the leg of my 3/4 length shorts hitting the seat tube.

 

[Fiona N]

The most annoying noise I had (until I got the Ribble anyway, but that's another story...) proved to be the rather oversized metal zip puller on my jersey - if it was pulled low enough so that it hung free, it made a small but persistant clunk as it hit the zip as I pedalled. It was that quality of sometimes a noise, other times nothing but when there was a noise it was coordinated with pedalling that made it so difficult to track down.

 

[slugonabike]

I find that the worst clunks and clicks tend to come from me rather than the bike

 

[Deleted member 1258]

I once stripped and rebuilt my entire drivechain twice over a couple of days, BB and all, to try and get rid of an annoying pinging sound on every driveside downstroke. Two days after the second strip down, on my way to work I found the culprit. The undone stud on the leg of my 3/4 length shorts hitting the seat tube.

Aint things like that both annoying and embarrassing? The one that got me was a metal watch strap rattling against a flopped and chopped handlebar, drove me mad for ages till I worked it out.

 

[Sysagent]

Heh, tell me about it!

For the past few weeks I have had one of those classic clicks / creaking noises when putting some pressure on the pedals (less when in cadence), so I did the usual things like strip and grease the bottom bracket, chainrings, pedals, check all over for any frame cracks and I even when to the extreme move of greasing the skewers, still the noise persisted!

So yesterday logically I went to the LBS and bought a new bottom bracket, not the normal Shimano replacement part but a nice shiny Hope Stainless Steel one, fitted it after some difficulty, the center tube was a 68/73mm one, I need the BBSP101:3 Road variant, hopefully the LBS Can swap the part as I have just about managed to squeeze the old plastic shimano one into the Hope bearings (will this cause harm?).

Anyways back on topic, so there I was with the bike all fitted and tweaked due to the spacer needed on the BB, so out I went for the a test run...

CLICK CREAK CLICK!!!!

What???

OK this is worrying now, so I started the tried and tested method of applying pressure around the frame with my right foot and started to narrow the noise to the lower non drive side of the bike, back triangle area, mmm it can't be that little old screw there holding the carbon seat stay to the metal chain stay can it?

OK let's whip it out and clean grease the little fecker, mmm that's a lot of dry dust there behind the screw, oh and while its all in bits lets flex the bits of frame in isolation, nope all fine there.

So screw nicely cleaned and back in situ as tight as I can get it, off for that test run again...

SILENCE!

Groan, so I splashed out £62 for shiny new Hope bottom bracket assembly for nothing, mind you though I can fit and forget it once I get that right center tube can't I...

Hope my tale of exploration and discovery helps others out.

 

[zacklaws]

My stupiediest clunk was caused by my helmet on the right hand side tapping the arm on my glasses.

Every time I hit some rough road, it would start, I deemed the racket was coming from my back wheel as every time I turned my head to the right to look it made it sound like coming from the back, but I became confused eventually as I found that when I turned my head to the left, the clunking came from the front.

After many miles wondering when my bike was going to have a catastrophic failure and a couple of stops to check my bike over, my helmet moved slightly as I was straightening up from bending over checking the back wheel and then feeling like a prat, it sunk in what it was, a quick tightening up of the straps sorted it out. I actually carried on riding, shaking my helmet as I went along to convince myself that, that was the problem before I sorted the straps out as I could not accept how thick I was not to have twigged earlier.

 

[gf1959]

If you've read my post 'the squeak goes on',then you'll know of my own efforts to track down an infuriating noise that occurs once every pedal revolution.
I still haven't found it,tho i must have looked at all the possible solutions above. Somewhere in the crank assembly,pity i can't get it to do it when i'm off
the bike. Naturally the noise is intermittent just to make it that bit harder to locate,and can range from a very piercing squeak,to just a faint sound of something
rubbing.
The main sound is me swearing at it.

 

[gf1959]

Solved!! I shall explain under my original post.