Questions for you experienced Ti bike riders…
When I’m out of the sadle and really riding hard my 3AI/2.5 titanium bike has a “PING” to it.
I’m trying to determine if it’s the frame flexing or its my wheels… Now that I have a different set of race wheels I should really go out on a traing ride to rule out the wheel… but until then…
Does Ti PING?
My cheap @ss aluminum bike makes the same noise. Tune-ups don’t help. It’s not the wheels, it’s not the top-tube or down-tube, I theorize it’s the seatstay, but I really have no idea.
Questions for you experienced Ti bike riders…
When I’m out of the sadle any really riding hard my 3AI/2.5 titanium bike has a “PING” to it.
I’m trying to determine if it’s the frame flexing or its my wheels… Now that I have a different set of race wheels I should really go out on a traing ride to rule out the wheel… but until then…
Does Ti PING?
Sounds like something is tapping one of your main tubes; tap one and compare the sound. Does it make this sound when going over rough roads? This is opposed to a “creak” or “click”, right? If your frame is flexing enough to make a noise, it’s broken.
Ti has a very distinct ‘Ping’ that you hear when you hit a good tee shot or have a good check in lacrosse. Although I cannot imagine what would cause such a noise form a bike frame. Sounds like something to talk to the manufacturer about to me…
What BB do you have? I bet that is it.
Yep, Record10 beat me to it. My Ti bike has an annual BB ‘ping’ phase. It just started up a couple weeks ago, so I had the BB serviced and voila…no more ‘ping’. You could do a quick check of the crank and chainring bolts, just as a backup, but I’d put money on the BB.
Another thing to check may be the rear brake cable pinging on the top tube. Since Ti frames don’t usually have paint, they can get a ping from the cables. My bet is BB too.
What I found works is to put no grease on my BB - instead use a good deal of Teflon plumbers tape on the threads…ping no more.
On my ti bike the rear brake cable pings on the top tube. It still pings when I run the rubber thingys too.
Had the same rear brake cable ping on my LS Classic even with the rubber things.
I had a Ti frames do this before it broke. The down tube has this funky tear in it, back in 96 or so before digital cameras were ubiquitous. More recently my Merlin was making this noise but I cleaned it up and inspected it and found the bottom bracket to make a bit more noise than normal when I rotated it after I took it out. Never made the noise except under pressure going up hill or really stomping on the flats. Replaced and no problems now. I’ve also had a front wheel that has a loose eyelet that made this noise and on one bike a cable that just barely touched the frame every once in a while.
The bottom bracket problem always occurerd at the same location in the pedal stroke, change gears, same location, so that made it easy to isolate to either the cranks or the bottom bracket. Dunno if your problem is the same.