Koyote

I'd be willing to bet that your weight and power output have absolutely nothing to do with your problem.

smd4

You're supposed to pedal with the balls of your feet, so no problem there. Not sure what a "chain ring shield" is. You say you replaced the chainrings, so it definitely could be the chainring bolts loosening or improperly tightened.

Tange Prestige was top of the line for that company in the 80s. Can't complaint about the Dura Ace bottom bracket yet. Since it seems like you're having the bike rebuilt with a new frame, let's see if the sound transfers over...

tajimirich

I dunno, that sounds more willful than thoughtful, it's been demonstrated for me a number of times that I've physically deformed the bike and its components, furthermore the noise only happens when I'm putting elevated power into the right hand pedal. I think logically this suggests the power I'm putting into the pedal is the cause of the noise.

There are some very sensitive egos here if a stranger talking about having some tendency to warp cheap chain rings marks him out as persona non grata or someone who needs to be chided rather than assisted.

Righto, let's see!

I'm thinking of making the switch to a more serious pedal than a flat one, might transfer my power more efficiently, with less variation, and give a better ride, awkward dismounting aside..

Sorry for "shield", I notice retro chainrings were naked, but these days they seem to have a big layer of contoured metal between ring and crank, I dunno what it's called but I dubbed it a "shield"..

Andrew R Stewart 

To address the tangent on broken chains and bent rings- These issues are nearly always from the rider not soft pedaling during front shifting. The chain sees massive twisting/prying apart forces when it is doing double duty, being asked to transmit power from the rings to the rear cogs and also being bent to one side by the ft der during the shift. When chains are rated for strength it's the side plate being pried off the pin that is being measured. The rings also will see the side bending forces too. Often/usually the bent section is aligned with the shift/lift pin and the shift gate.

The solution for these issues is a simple (easy to say, much harder to teach/learn) relaxing on the pedal forces for the stroke or two needed to make the shift. Once the chain is settled down onto the teeth it will transmit a vast amount of power, as it is designed to.

I have seen so many bent rings and chains on customer bikes. Often the rider is a big guy who has a fairly low cadence and hasn't had much (if any at all) instruction as to how to better use their bike's features (like derailleur shifting) to their best advantage. In the LBS world we have a term of riders being "gym strong". Meaning that their strength has been developed with motions and devices that don't mimic the motion or mechanism of a bike ridden outside. Back when I was young the LBS I bought my first derailleur bike from (and later worked for) told me to use one gear easier than I thought was right. This simple instruction has served me well for tens of thousands of chain brakeage/ring bending miles, including on our tandems. Andy

Koyote

That has apparently been told to you, not demonstrated.

Sure, you have to put some power into the pedal to hear the noise. But I wrote that "your weight and power output have absolutely nothing to do with your problem," and I still believe that's true.

​​​​​​Nothing to do with ego. It's about trying to help you to cost-effectively solve your issue.

tajimirich

unsubstantiated distinction.

Jah bless, bed time here

tajimirich

That's fantastic advice. I sincerely try to change gears only when doing so won't create any big jumps or clunks, I have had a pretty slow cadence for a long time though I recently eased up on it - maybe the damage was done.

Most of your assumptions were spot on, nice!

I first road a road style bike that was a single speed steel bike, without any gears, and really I could put as much power as I wanted in it without risking damage, and at a pretty consistent cadence, and yeah it built some bad habits.. I really want to do better though. I live in Japan and don't really have easy access to more experienced heads to help me sort things out.

squirtdad

check to make sure that the chain rings are tight, I have had right side clicking noises that appear to be pedal/rotational based and found out the chain rings were not tight

just another thing to eliminate

70sSanO

What Andrew R Stewart has told you comes from years of riding with friction non-index, non-ramped/pinned flat chainrings.

For those of us that rode back then it became second nature to soft pedal, but more importantly was anticipating terrain and shifting in advance of absolutely needing to force a shift.

John

Trakhak

By the way, you might want to visit and maybe post in the Clydesdales and Athenas subforum here. Plenty of people post in there who have run into similar problems with bike noises and failure of components.

And they tend to be low-key about discussions. I'm not a Clydesdale, but I enjoy reading threads there because the participants consistently treat each other with courtesy and respect---not a given in some of the other subforums on this site.

Andrew R Stewart 

To further drive the point of shifting technique being important is that the number of damaged chains and ring increased dramatically after lift pinned and ramped rings came onto the market. Why? Because nopw one could shift better with less than better technique. I'll add that I also learned a lot about how to ride a bike by riding with older and more experienced riders. Andy

Crankycrank

90 kgs (198 lbs) should not tax any decent bike so we can rule that out. Hell, that's svelte here in the USA.

tajimirich

I've heard this one a couple of times now, I'll definitely be looking into it thanks!

Mtracer

Maybe mentioned already, I didn't read all of the responses. But don't forget shoe cleats. I tend to get squeaks not clicks. But I have to regularly grease my SPD pedals, where the shoe cleat clicks in, to keep things quiet. I would also suspect that worn cleats could move around and perhaps make clicking noise., That's just a guess though.

Noises are funny things. I swore I was hearing noise around my head tube. Eventually found it was my frame pump, mounted on the seat tube bottle cage mounts. The pump itself had loosened internally and was rattling. It took several months to figure that one out.

Concerning flexing a frame and making noises. That unquestionable happens. If I don't keep enough clearance between the chain and the front derailleur cage, I can get rub, but only on the power stroke on the right leg. Things flex enough to move the top of the chain ring out just enough for the chain to rub the derailleur. And I'm not a powerful rider though heavier at around 210 lbs. The highest 1-second power I've ever measured is maybe 800 W.

Bikes are amazingly strong given their relatively spindly construction, but they do flex under load. And obviously different bikes and frame materials behave differently.

tajimirich

Thanks again to everyone who tried to help here.

These are the components that caused the trouble:




The new bike they're on is so far running silent as morning mist, unless the Italian wheels are imitating a cicada... So I really think it must have been a structural issue with the aluminium frame. I'll live in fear of the new frame developing the same issue v_v

esasjl

"...spate of Shimano cranks that have been failing in recent times. This has mainly affected Dura Ace and Ultegra cranks which use a two part crank arm that has been glued (bonded) along its seams. "

[language warning]
Possible?

tajimirich

Interesting!

Mine are 105s, and on the new bike they seem to work fine, so I'm not sure that'd be the problem

Mr. 66

I think you are going to experience more flex with the steel frame than you did with the aluminum.

tajimirich

Good point - I sure hope so! I love the feeling of steel frames.. the aluminium frame was really light but this new one reminds me of some good times. but maybe it's a different kind of flex.. I have no idea, all I know is that the aluminium frame sounded like a jazz fusion drummer by the end and so far - half a dozen km in - the new bike is silent.

This frame is a "top of the line" late 80s frame called Tange Prestige, I hope I can feel the springiness, during my first ride I was too absorbed with getting used to the different dimensions to notice lol..

... Except when it's in its lowest gear and I'm going up a steep slope, then it does some very rhythmic ticking.. but that's a separate issue..

ClydeClydeson

Drivetrain parts like chainrings can deflect or bend under extreme loads, esp less expensive stuff.

Derailleur hangers? No. The same derailleur hanger will often be used on chea and expensive bikes that the only thing they have in common is the shape of the dropout.

Aluminum frames? Unlikely. As mentioned above, unless you have an old skinny-tubed bonded aluminum bike from the 80s, any aluminum frame is likely to be stiffer than any light steel frame. It is possible the frame is deflecting side-to-side when you drope the hamer, but steel frames will generally be worse in this regard than a modern aluminum frame. I weigh between 110 and 125 kg and have broken multiple steel frames but only ever one aluminum frame.

tajimirich

Thanks for the insight!

You've got 20-30kg on me, here's hoping my heat treated, double butted mofo of a steel frame doesn't break on me haha, I think you might be touching on the issue when you mention "drop the hammer" as a possible cause of deflection. That was my and my bike shop guy's consensus... The consensus didn't solve the problem though, lol, hence this thread...

The components are all at least Shimano 105 , I did bend a few cheaper chain rings in the past so I splurged on some heavy duty stuff.

Anyway the upshot is, if you scroll up a few posts, I've got a new bike now so this thread is kind of obsolete as, so far, the new bike doesn't make the noises despite using the same components.