Fox Farm

I also had a hard time to tell from the phone vid clip. Be sure that 1, saddle rails are lubed, both where they clamp to the seat post and also where they join the shell. Also make sure that the head set is tightened correctly.

masi61

Not sure if this was mentioned yet: pedal bearings. Which pedals are you using?

robbyville

Yup checked pedal bearings, circa 2005 Shimano Dura Ace pedals currently.

So... update time! This morning before taking off on my 5:30am ride I checked and adjusted the headset, all seemed normal but like I mentioned earlier it's been 2.5 years since I installed it and haven't really done any maintenance to it since (Chris King headset). Bike sounded great when I started out, I was thinking maybe the grease film on the dropouts and a little on the QR cam may have done the trick. About 7 miles in I noticed that my headset was now loose, guess I screwed up the adjustment. Stopped on the road and did a quick tightening. Lo and Behold the creak immediately came back! So guess many of you were bang on, despite my insistence that it was coming from either the BB or rear or somewhere below me, the sound must have been reverberating through the steel down tube. Going to disassemble the front end tonight and grease the headset, hopefully won't require a new one.

We shall see, but I'm feeling pretty confident that I've found my creak!

noodle soup

Is there any grease on the spacers? I've seen that stop a creaking from the headset.

u235

Well rest of the bike is now well tuned, gone over, and greased up so no loss..
The few times I've had a stem related creak it was always the bars. I loosen and retighten the bars and its goes away. Funny, same thing I do to my BSA HT2 about every 1000 miles too.

robbyville

Son of a b... no I didn't put any on the spacers and I just finished up! I did put some on the entire steerer tube and then of course carbon paste on both the lock nut and between the stem/steerer will adjust (again if I must) before tomorrow's recovery! Thanks for the suggestion even though you just pissed me off! I should mention that the bearings felt great and I didn't actually pull them (I haven't checked the specs but they seemed to be permanently mounted in the races within the head tube so perhaps they are a one piece unit top and bottom). I cleaned up and put new grease over everything. Hoping that will suffice.

Yeah fair enough, of course once this happened to me this morning, I was asking myself how I didn't notice it was coming from the front of the bike... like GI Joe always says "It's easy to be smart later"

masi61

Well let us know if this cures the creak. I have a persistent creak when climbing (more of a “tick tick”) out of the saddle that I thought was coming from the rear of the bike. I have sorted all of the things it could be at the rear and now I think I heard my Ritchey Carbon bars or my Ritchey (hybrid aluminum/carbon fiber outer wrap) stem might have made a tick noise. I’ll double check the torque specs for the Ritchey stem and bars.

Did you use a torque wrench to tighten everything down?

Greatestalltime

I thought I had a BB creak. Turned out to be a cracked right crank arm. Twice this happened.

noodle soup

If you go and look back at my original post, you'll see I mentioned the headset as a source of noise.

BTW, I can tell you with 100% certainty that his bars are not creaking in the stem. The stem/steerer tube/headset might be creaking, but his bars are not .

robbyville

I do use a torque wrench especially on the small carbon bits. But I’m not fanatical using it on things where I may have to research specs like derailleur attachments those I generally just crank away

I was originally worried about that as a few had told me that the sound was exactly like what they had experienced before their holotech cranks broke

lol true on that, I have a one piece bar/stem combo. Pride and joy painted to match the bike

missed my ride time this morning but I do my long ride tomorrow so will update then.

robbyville

Todays’s update,

the headset is perfect and smooth, I am ever so happy that I took the time to take apart the front end.... said nobody ever!

my creak was back in good form today, one of the guys I was riding with took pity on me and we swapped wheels. Creak now on his bike. Then we changed out skewers, still creaking so it’s either the rim or the hub. I double checked spoke tension and all good so will get the bearing tool and new bearings ordered and go there next. Also got me off my ass and back to looking for my next extra wheel set lol!

noodle soup

I was shocked when you first said that you only own one wheelset.

robbyville

Don't I know it! I've always had at least two sets if not more. I think I got rid of the last pair a bit ago before moving to the new house and to help someone out looking to get into tubeless wheels. They were some bombproof Easton's with White Industry Hubs built up by Mike and Dave at November. Looking around now for another backup not sure what I will go with. Maybe another set of Light Bicycle's.

I ordered the service tools and a set of bearings from Industry Nine last night.

Gads, it was sooooo good riding on someone else's wheel for the last 5 miles of yesterday's ride lol. But man, that creak is even louder coming off a full carbon bike, poor guy was being treated like a leper by the rest of the group, hahahahaha! Kidding of course

Ghazmh

So I had mentioned my bike making a similar creaking sound earlier in the thread. For unrelated reasons I pulled the axle and freehub body off of the R45 rear hub to clean and lube it up. After reassembly the creaking sound vanished. Perhaps it’s worth looking into your rear hub. I never would have guessed because to me it sounded like it was coming from the left crank arm.

robbyville

yep it is definitely the rear hub, but I can’t service it without the axle cap removal tool. Waiting to receive that and new bearings next week

cthenn

LOL that sounds exactly like a creak I was having, it's regular, but not every pedal revolution. It would creak for 3 or 4 revs, then go away, then come back, and on and on. Sounded like it was coming from the BB area, but it turned out to be in the rear wheel freehub body. Needed servicing and grease, then it went away.

Edit: a similar but different issue I had was cracking Dura Ace cassette carrier bolts. The bolts (more like rivets) that hold together the 2-cog clusters near the top of the cassette seem to break very easily, I have broken 2 cassettes that way, still with a lot of life left on the teeth.

jadocs

Video is blocked at work so can't view or listen. I'm not sure what type of load this happens under but is it possible your wheels are flexing and brushing the brake pads?

robbyville

thanks for the thought. Nope definitely mechanical not pad rub. I seem to have it figured out as rear hub. Waiting on new bearings and tools.