- Oh my goodness. We've got to stop.
I can't stand the sound of that bike anymore.
- Mark, I'm so sorry.
I really have no idea where this creak's coming from.
- Well, I'm sure many of you are watching this now
and can really sympathise with this.
You're on an otherwise blissful and peaceful ride,
only for it to be ruined by a creaking, squeaking,
or even rattling bike, or your friend's bike.
- It can be so frustrating.
You're out on a ride, and it just diverts all your attention
away from the ride you're supposed to be on.
All you can hear is that noise.
But trying to figure out where that noise is coming from
is a lot easier said than done.
- Well to help you diagnose, or potentially fix
any of those issues with your bike,
we're going to head inside right now.
And we're going to run you through some of the most common
sounds and creaks to come from your bike.
- Now, given it was my bike making such a noise,
Mark's, well he's actually left me all alone to it.
Although some of these bikes can sound like
they're absolutely falling apart
and it's a catastrophic noise,
thankfully that is rarely the case.
Modern carbon fibre bikes have sounds that resonate
through it's frame making the smallest of noise
actually seem, well, pretty serious.
But that is, thankfully, not often the case
and we're going to take you through a step-by-step guide
of the simple things that you can check your bike
to see where they might be coming from.
So my first point of call is going to be the pedals.
Now the chances are, unless you're travelling to races often,
or just quite happy to strip your bike down from time
to time, these things haven't probably come off your bike
in a long time, so they're a prime candidate
for some inspection.
Also if you're riding your bike lots in wet conditions
or you're power washing your bike down to clean it,
there's a good chance the grease that was in there
is long since gone.
So what we're gonna do is take our pedal off
and then get rid of anything that's left in there.
Dirt or grime or any grease that might be left.
Wipe that all down, clean the threads completely.
And then pop it back in.
Also, if it's a little bit too loose there's a good chance
that could be making quite a racket and a noise too.
So by going through that whole process, and just
giving your pedals some good TLC isn't going to do you
any harm whatsoever.
Now, since we're in this region of the bike,
the next obvious place to have a quick look at
is our chain rings. These always, I shouldn't say always,
generally come as two separate rings, and they're
held together by a series of bolts.
Sometimes that might be on the front.
But in this case they're hidden
in behind so we can't see them.
But what can happen is that these just either
aren't greased up enough when they're assembled.
Or the grease happens to wear away over time.
So what you can do is just get in behind their,
take each bolt out, have a look at it, clean it down,
reapply some grease and simply just put
everything back together as you took it apart.
And perhaps even add some sort of thread strengthening
compound like Loctite which can just help
to keep everything snug once you've put everything
back in together.
Next thing that we're going to look at is our saddle.
Now, believe it or not, that noise that appears
to be coming from the front of a bike could actually be
resonating through the frame from the saddle.
A good way to check if this is the case while out
on a bike ride is simply to get out of the saddle
and do some riding to see if that noise continues.
And if it doesn't then we could well have found our issue.
So what we're gonna do is take the saddle off.
And a culprit that can often be the case
is our saddle rails.
So you need to take the saddle off,
but before you do that take a picture, make a note,
mark where the saddle is fore and aft on the clamp,
and then get a good idea of where
your saddle was before you take it off
because that's a bit of a nightmare if you forget.
So get it off, clean everything, all our points
of contact here with the saddle rails,
and then just add a little bit of oil
and if the carbon rails, do be careful
cause that could actually damage the carbon,
so just make sure you know what you're using.
Now whilst we've got our saddle off,
it makes total sense to actually have a look
at the seat post clamp where the saddle
connects to our seat post.
So that's in around, but this region on this bike here,
so just take the saddle off, clean everything out,
take the bolts apart if they are there,
and just re-grease all of those too,
because that could well be the issue as well.
Following home from the saddle, the next part
of the bike we're gonna look at is our seat post.
Now this is a part of the bike that could
have all sorts of noises coming from it,
and that's largely due to the fact that it bears
the brunt of the riders weight when we're cycling.
But it can often be confused with the bottom
bracket noise, so a good way of trying to determine
which of the two it is, is to unclip when you're
cycling along, take all the power out of your pedals,
and obviously the bottom bracket,
and if you've still got noise, then there is a good chance
that it is coming from our seat post.
So what to do, firstly you need to take
some electrical tape, mark the height of your seat post
so you don't forget that, and then we take our seat post
out and thoroughly clean the surface of the seat post
but not just that, we also need to clean
what's inside the seat tube.
So I like to take a rag or something like
a screw driver which is nice and long and that just
lets you get right down in there
to clean anything that's in there
and get it out of the way.
If it's a metal on metal contact then get some grease
right down in there as far as the seat post
is gonna go, or if in this case it's carbon to carbon
then use something like a friction paste.
Finally, we also need to grease
the bolts for our seat clamp too.
So, how about our wheels?
Now I'll be honest, this is not something
I've personally had noise or creaky issues with,
but I've certainly heard of others who have.
And an area where that can come from
is the crossover of the spokes, which is adjusted here,
and a good thing to do is just put a tiny
little drop of oil there, and another place
you can do while you're at it,
is at the head of the spoke there.
Little bit to each of those points
make sure you wipe away any excess,
and the further point that is a problem
with on our wheels is skewers.
But again all you need to do is make sure that you put
a little bit of oil into each component part of the skewer,
wipe any excess before hand and then put it back in.
Another cause of noise from our wheel region,
is also from the cassette.
Now, clearly a worn cassette is gonna sound
pretty ugly, but also if your lock ring
in here isn't tight, then that
can really sound pretty horrific.
So make sure that that's tightened up nice and snug
before you go looking for other further noise.
If you've still not got to the bottom of your noise,
then the chances are it's coming from
the slightly more complicated parts of the bike.
So let's talk about our headset.
The cause could be coming from any number
of bearings, caps and bolts that holds
this whole area together.
But let's not forget that could also be
our stem and our handle bar as well.
So essentially we have to take everything apart
bit by bit, to try and see where
that root cause is coming from.
Possible plan of action, might be to slide the fork
out from the head tube, clean and re-grease
all of the surfaces, if that doesn't sort you out
then you might have to look into removing
and reinstalling the caps and crown race
that are inside there, with some grease,
but do remember to make sure the caps
are sitting perfectly snug.
Failing that, it might be that you need to replace
the headset bearings, but if you're like me
and mechanically challenged, I'd get along
to a bike shop that can do it all for you.
But finally the bottom bracket
and without doubt it is one of the most
common complaints heard by shop mechanics.
And as I said earlier these noises in our frames
have a habit of resonating and for that reason
the bottom bracket can often be quite hard to track down.
It's often on dry days that you can get the noise the worst,
as our cranks are rotating, the bottom bracket just creaks
and it's really because of all the grease
that's been washed away over time.
So to fix this ourselves you can take the crank arm off,
ensuring that the bearings are smooth,
re-greasing the axle surface and all the other
major surfaces, putting it all back together again,
and torquing it up to the recommended force.
But as we said with the head set bearings earlier,
might just be that the bottom bracket
simply needs replaced, and that's because the bearings
have gotten misshapen and are causing friction.
But like I also said before, that's
probably a job that maybe the bike shop
would better be able to handle.
Then there is the frame itself.
If you've explored all these other points on the bike
and you've still got a creaky noise,
then it might be worth taking a bit more
of a closer look at the frame to see
if you've got any issues, but fingers
crossed that isn't the case.
We do all have some bike mechanic related stories,
so please feel free to share those
in the comments below and let us know.
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And finally for a video on part
two of Q&A you can click on that there.