Originally Posted by
Tripletail52
Ok folks I think I've solved the mystery. I can't post photos so I can't show you, but basically the chainstay tape was half peeled off so it must have caught wind whenever the bike moved fast and made that horrible noise.
I feel so stupid
Many a crisis has boiled down to this: "Its a fine line between sheer genius and absolute stupidity." I have fallen prey to the latter far too many times.
A future suggestion: When I get stuck with a problem, be it bike, car, appliance, computer etc the best two ways to address the problem are to 1. Walk away from it for a day or 2. Put a second set of eyes on it. We get too close to the problem and some time or outside observation often solves the problem. When I was touring more, our morning regimen was to have each member riding look at another person's bike, not their own. It was amazing how we thought we were being diligent yet we missed stuff. Glad you found the noise, I would go insane if I had a noise I could not find!