Where's that noise from?

[Bicycle]

I went out on my fixie today and climbed some hills under a Saharan sun.

Not in the Sahara, you understand; in Worcestershire. But it was hot.

Well... My son laughed at me for taking the fixie and then disappeared on every climb. Ha ha ha. Dad is fat and slow....

But that wasn't the issue. He does that all the time.

The issue was that a new noise started to come from my bicycle.

Normally at such a time, I can stop pedalling to isolate possible places the noise might be coming from.

Not, it would seem, on a fixie. Somebody forgot to think of that. Big, big mistake.

It is a whole different heap of laughs finding out where a noise comes from on a fixie...

Also, I've decided that Winston Churchill never rode a fixie down a hill at speed.

Apparently he once said that the most exhilarating feeling was to be shot at without result.

Dear Late Mr Anglo-American former Prime Minister and provider of good quotes; the most exhilarating thing is to ride down a big, steep hill on a fixie at 33 mph*, cadencing a billion and not fall off or get crushed by a truck.

You (Sir Winston) might have escaped the Boers and done some other clever and brave stuff, but you were wrong about that 'being shot at without result' thing.

So... Am I the only one who is frustrated by this inability to stop pedalling as an aid to locating a noise when riding fixed?

* I know 33mph doesn't sound fast, but with 69" gearing it's quite fast enough. With gears it's a 44 mph hill.

 

[Theseus]

Never had a problem with isolating a sound myself. Use varying amounts of pressure on the pedals to spin in stealth mode as needed.

Go by the frequency of the noise.

Every pedal rev - Seatpost, Saddle, handlebar, pedal, BB. chainring, cranks, shoes, knees
Every 2 and a bit pedal revs - possible chain linkage problem. Stiff or breaking link
Every wheel rev - sprocket, brakes, tyres

Sheldon wrote a good article on it ...

My link


OT: As much as I admire the Harris cyclery for maintaining this site after Sheldon passed, the ads they have introduced are very irritating.

 

[just jim]

I got "the tick" and it turned out to be a couple of loose spokes. So you could twang ' em to see if any need tightening...

 

[Rohloff_Brompton_Rider]

i agree that fixie riding is great, but sometimes, just sometimes i wish i could have a 2 speed fixie just to give me legs a rest going down +10% hills that can last for over ten miles where i live (not a constant 10 miles but very close to being constant).

 

[totallyfixed]

I can sympathise because bike noises almost never seem to originate from where you think they do. The method I use now when all else fails is to put the bike on the turbo and get Mrs TF to listen for me. The beauty of fixed is that it's a lot easier to narrow it down than on a geared bike [and a lot less to go wrong].

 

[rustychisel]

so you think ;-) until the bike proves otherwise.

Gubbins here just ripped and lubed his cranks and bottom bracket because of the persistent creaking - it needed anyway it as I'd done quite a bit of rain riding - only to discover the noise was the saddle rails where they enter the saddle shell. A dab or two of oil fixed that.

 

[fossyant]

I can sympathise because bike noises almost never seem to originate from where you think they do. The method I use now when all else fails is to put the bike on the turbo and get Mrs TF to listen for me. The beauty of fixed is that it's a lot easier to narrow it down than on a geared bike [and a lot less to go wrong].

At least Mrs TF is into bikes. My wife would tell me to bog off.

No problems locating noises here. Just don't forget to keep pedalling

 

[Bicycle]

In the end, the noise turned out to be the padded bit on a (not very padded) Selle Italia saddle having come away from the shell of the sadle at the nose.

When my weight was off the nose of the saddle, it rattled on some surfaces.

Harder to detect than you might think - and even after I'd isolated it I didn't really think it could make that much noise....

The saddle isn't rebuildable and will probably go in the bin. That makes me sad; it's been on several bikes and I feel some strange loyalty towards it.

It's not unlike finding a favourite cat dead of old age in the cellar.

I do accept that the upside of fault finding on a fixie is that there aren't so many likely culprits, but not being able to use freewheeling as an isolating technique still causes me some pique.