Thread: it breaks down more than my landie

well after no resolution i have parted ways with the bike shop......

they claim its the rear skewer as when the A Garde rider took it for a spin he adjusted the tension of the skew and all was good.......

until i was 30k into a ride the next day and the noise returned grrrrrrr

I had what I thought was bottom bracket noises on my MTB when it was new, turned out the drive side crank was loose where it was splined to the chainring spider. A warranty fix, been good on that score ever since. Pedals are another good source of creaks, I suggest you lube the pedal threads and tighten.

I've had an interminable and annoying squeak on my GT since I bought it. The alloy seatpost creaks in the alloy frame tube. Grease makes no difference, but wrapping the bottom of the seatpost in teflon tape does help make it less severe.

90-95kg is above the upper limit for many wheels and given you have had the majority of the problems with them, have you tried swapping them out for a known good pair, or even better swap wheels with a mate for a ride and see if he/she can replicate the problem? after that I'd swap bikes with someone and see if it is the shoes, pedals etc etc... I've had all of those things everyone has mentioned cause "BB problems" before! as an example, what I thought were intermittent BB issues turned out to be a dodgy bearing in my 404's rear hub - only successfully diagnosed after a wheel swap to test... so I guess the point is, there is a lot you can check and test through part substitution without having to resort to a 2 hour round trip drive!

With a heavier rider (moi ) and a marginal wheelset, I use a really high spoke tension.

Seems to work.

Either that, or i ride more lightly than my lack of skill says i should

Rick - are you talking custom wheel builds? more spokes is the easiest way to build in greater wheel reliability for the clydesdale riders ;-)

I agree, you can't beat 36x3 cross, but a re-tensioned stockie can be more reliable too.

My roadie has a wheel set that was notorious for going out of true from new, radial laced DT Revo spoked front wheel, (Taiwanese hub ?) Mavic Open Pro rims.
DT Hugi 240 hub rear, radial laced non drive side, 2xcross drive side and DT Revo's.
Rims are 24/26.

Miles too light and a dumb/show pony lacing pattern for a rider my weight, (over the years I've varied between 82 and 95kg) but even little blokes used to continually have them go out of true.

The shops used to soften them even more to survive or just re-lace them 3xcross all round, my theory was that softening was the wrong thing to do.
I just tensioned the frig out of them and never had an issue till I put a stick through the back wheel.

I had to ride 6km of farm tracks and jump seven or eight cattle grids just to get to the bitumen for the first five years of riding it too, and I only had 23c's too, I've only just gone to 25's.

I've never had a DT tension gauge, just used the old 'pluck' method to 'gauge' tension so I can't tell you how tight they were, but I was scared I was going to collapse the rims they were/are so tight. Think piano string and high C
Never had to re-true either.

I think a small stick flicked up and jammed everything up when I wrecked the rear.
I went oh so close to face planting the bitumen, luckily I was accelerating away from an intersection at the time, so not going too fast.
I re-laced it with DT comps on the drive side, just for some more beef, but kept the radial lacing on the non-drive side as they were all still OK.

I built up my mtb wheelset many, many years ago.
Mavic X317 rims, Chris King hubs (Zzzzzzzzzzzzz ) and Sapim CX-Ray spokes.
CX-Rays are supposed to be too light for a mtb, then factor in my weight, but again they are tensioned to the hilt and I've never ever had to re-true.

Originally Posted by weeds

well after no resolution i have parted ways with the bike shop......

they claim its the rear skewer as when the A Garde rider took it for a spin he adjusted the tension of the skew and all was good.......

until i was 30k into a ride the next day and the noise returned grrrrrrr

well no noises today........

i should expand on the quote above, i did have a flat at 20k and adjusted the clamp pressure on the skewer three as per the shop advice that i wasn't doing it at the right pressure

i use co2 canisters and they don't inflate to 120psi, maybe around 90psi......it started to creak 5-10 after the flat

this morning while pumping my tyres up the rear creaked with every pump, at 120psi no noises at all at the way to work

i have come to the conclusion that it is the wheel....will have to save some dollars and invest in a new wheel set