So my bike has been making a noise thats gotten progressively worse over time.
It sounds like it’s coming from the rear hub or bottom bracket.
It only tends to start/occur when I’m riding up hill. It goes away when on flats usually.
It occurs out of saddle or in the saddle.
Its hard to describe, between a tick and a squeek.
Here is what I’ve done:
checked skewer tightness
tightened bottom bracket cups
greased crank spindle
checked chainring bolt tightness
greased and checked pedal tightness
My crank is a FSA Energy, installed to spec on a bottom bracket less than a year old.
My rear hub is a Velocity road hub. About 1.5 years old.
Maybe it’s a bad bearing? They both seem to spin fairly well.
have you tightened the saddle? Believe it or not, i’ve had a few bikes, and they all tend to make a noise that sounds like the bottom bracket, and once i tighten the saddle, it is silent and still slow!
what frame material on bike ? when you re installed bb cups did you grease them ? white plumbers tape on the threads ? what kinda pedals ?
Lubing the cups was the 1st thing that came to mind also.
In addition, re-adjust the front derailleur , sometimes the chainrings distort under high load and chafe against the cage
I ask because I have a similar ticking noise that is dependent on cadence. It also does not occur if you are pressing lightly on the pedals or if you are off the bike and turn the cranks with your hand. A mechanic suggested it was the bearings in my pedals but it is still happening with a new set of pedals. I was thinking it might be something in the bottom bracket.
Does the noise occur equally when pedaling/coasting?
Judging by what you’ve done already, I’d guess something with the rear wheel.
-re-torque the cassette lockring. Sometimes slightly loose cogs will only creak under load, such as climbing.
-check the spoke tensions
-put a light coat of grease along the length of your skewers
-This seems very counter intuitive, but check your stem/handlebar. Stand over your bike and torque the handlebars the same way you would while climbing. Noises tend to migrate through carbon frames and can seem like they are coming from one place when really they are somewhere else.
I had a similar problem once and it happened at exactly the same times as your sound. In my case, it turned out that when I really put pressure on the pedals, the float allowed my shoes to pivot slightly and just barely touch the cranks whenever the pressure was greatest. It took me a week or two to figure it out mostly because it was happening on my road bike in traffic and looking down wasn’t a great idea. All I did was move my cleats a little and the sound was gone.
It’s an easy one to check in any case and a really cheap fix if that’s the problem!
Have a good one and good luck with the squeak.
Cracked chain stay? That’s always what I think when I get that kind of noise. Never is though (whew), last time was a rear drive side wheel bearing. It had caused a tick sound, in synch with pedal revolutions, didn’t happen with a light spin, only when I had more pressure on the pedals. Didn’t happen with real low rpm either.
I had a similar problem and it turned out to be the rear brake caliper. I opened it up and the noise went away… It appears increased torque skewed the wheel alignment slightly, but enough to contact the brake pad intermittently.
I’ve got exactly the same noise. People can hear me coming with all the noise it makes up hill.
Have had it for a year or more and I’m almost positive it’s the bottom bracket, which I intend to replace when I get time
I was always nervous to put my Shimano(my road bike is Campy) wheel on to continue narrowing things down thinking the shifting would annoy me more than the noise.
Well I learned two things today:
First, a 10 speed shimano cassette is more than passable on a bike with 10s campy shifters and rear derailleur.
Second, I did 5 hill repeats of about a mile and never heard a noise with the different rear wheel. It seems like the likely culprit is a rear wheel bearing, as the wheel in question spins kind of “gritty” in hand.
I went through the exact same issue as what you described and although you already noted it on your checklist, it was in fact my rear tire skewer. I thought it was tight - but I suppose it wasn’t tight enough. The noise is thankfully gone but I sure spent a lot of time and energy searching for that darn “click”. Perhaps you should put a little lubricant between the skewer and frame drop out before you tighten it down. That was a suggestion I read that eliminated a similar problem.
I had this with an FSA carbon crank, can’t recall the exact model. LBS got me a swap out set of MegaExo cups, still there. Threw new rings on it and new chain ring bolts, still there. Finally threw a cheap 105 crank/square taper and voila end of problem. It was something with the crank/bb interface we couldn’t resolve.
Do you have a spare crank/bb you could throw on for a test ride to just rule that part of the drive train out?
Same thing here. It was the rear skewer. It happened before though, and it was the pedal spring (Look)–but they sent a new pair as they had some defects on a small lot of pedals but fixed it they said. Another time, there was a clicking noise & it was the front deraileur cap on the cable barely tapping as I pedaled. The more power I applied, the more the cranks/frame distorted (which was NOT MUCH at all), but enough to make it louder. Most recently though, it has been the skewer (I have a P3)…and really have to crank it down for it to not make a noise.
