Originally Posted by
Last ride 76
It takes much longer for steel chains and steel rings to accommodate imperfections in fit through wearing down, and may never wear together as smoothly as steel/alu, and so be more prone to making noise. Steel on steel sounds louder too, for a given force, ( I'm thinking of bells, but it should be valid, no?)
After ruling out obvious noise from rubbing derailleur guides, I look for unequal component wear due to replacements or drivechain changes. Properly lubed chain, freewheel and chainrings mesh more smoothly over time, and generally become almost silent, (before wearing out). If pedaling is not quiet at that point, freewheel/wheel/chainring/rear derailleur alignment would be my next check... My last(maybe should be first, depending on the build) check would be component/brand compatability.
You could maybe try a nickel plated chain which helps noise some but a lot of the noise is likely coming from the combination of modern hard steel chain on medium steel rings. This setup tended to be noisy by modern standards even prestine basically nos perfectly setup bike I have road.