I rode home from work tonight in mild/moderately wet weather. It was a 21km commute and took around 50mins with lights. I had to ride through some decent puddles along the way. About 1-2km from home I noticed some strange noises coming from down low. Initially I thought it was the rear mud guard rubbing on the tyre. Then the pedals just felt a little unusual, like they were coming loose, so I rode ultra cautiously. When I coasted there was no such sensation or noise, only when pedalling.
I plan on commuting in some stormy weather again tomorrow morning but will need to get to the bottom of the noise early tomorrow (it’s night here in Oz). The only two things I can think of are bearings in either the bottom bracket Shimano cups or the rear hub. I’m running Ultegra 6600?? (circa 2008) on the bike and have one of the cheaper Shimano rear wheels (R80? It cost about $250).
I recall some time back a previous Shimano cheap wheel (Wh 535 or something) packed up in wet weather. Seems the bearings came out / loose and started grinding the hub out.
Is it possible to be anything in the bottom bracket (I’d take the bottom bracket from the DA tri bike sitting vacant in the trainer room if that is the case) or is the rear hub the likely suspect I’d grab the other wheel (Have one remaining rear wheel - a realy cheapy that has spent its life on the trainer).
I rode home from work tonight in mild/moderately wet weather. It was a 21km commute and took around 50mins with lights. I had to ride through some decent puddles along the way. About 1-2km from home I noticed some strange noises coming from down low. Initially I thought it was the rear mud guard rubbing on the tyre. Then the pedals just felt a little unusual, like they were coming loose, so I rode ultra cautiously. When I coasted there was no such sensation or noise, only when pedalling.
I plan on commuting in some stormy weather again tomorrow morning but will need to get to the bottom of the noise early tomorrow (it’s night here in Oz). The only two things I can think of are bearings in either the bottom bracket Shimano cups or the rear hub. I’m running Ultegra 6600?? (circa 2008) on the bike and have one of the cheaper Shimano rear wheels (R80? It cost about $250).
I recall some time back a previous Shimano cheap wheel (Wh 535 or something) packed up in wet weather. Seems the bearings came out / loose and started grinding the hub out.
Is it possible to be anything in the bottom bracket (I’d take the bottom bracket from the DA tri bike sitting vacant in the trainer room if that is the case) or is the rear hub the likely suspect I’d grab the other wheel (Have one remaining rear wheel - a realy cheapy that has spent its life on the trainer).
A lot of the cheaper shimano wheels have cup and cone bearings. When the nuts that hold this entire setup together come loose, the wheel stops working pretty quickly. We’re talking JRA to wheel locked up in under 15 sec. The issue at hand is that the bearings themselves are so small that if your hub is loose enough for you to feel a clunk/rattle then it’s loose enough to let one of those bearings out of the race (where it will promptly be chewed up, bringing your ride to an abrupt halt). The fact that the noise only happens while you’re pedalling, and the fact that the hub would likely be trash suggests to me that you’re probably looking at a BB issue.
I would guess bottom bracket but it’s pretty easy to eliminate wheels by swapping with the other bike temporarily and riding around a bit. And then if it doesn’t happen switch one wheel at a time to narrow it down. I had a dry bottom bracket squeak but only when pedalling hard. Also, try taking chain off chainring and rotate crank slowly to feel for roughness.