Irritating ticking noise

JKO

I have a 6 month old Planet X carbon SL bike which has developed an irritating habit. I seem to get a ticking noise on each revolution of the pedal when it is under pressure. However, if I turn the pedals with no pressure on (when on a bike stand for example), no noise.

It doesn't sound much but after a long ride with this noise in the background its a real pain.

Seems to be coming from the crank area, or rear mech and I have tried the usual tightening of seat, seat clamp, handlebars and stem.

Could the bottom bracket be faulty or is it a sealed unit. It is all ultegra.

Grateful for any thoughts.

John

Sea_Green_Incorruptible

Creaks and ticks! They drive you bananas.

Could be any number of things, including all those you mention, but I would have thought it's unlikely to be a faulty BB.

On mine, I've just sorted out a tick by really tightening up the seatpost. I'd done this before (in fact I thought I'd tried everything over a period of increasingly irritated months), but obviously hadn't done it tightly enough...

benvickery

John,

I have the same bike and have had a similar problem. The click seems to happen when I'm peddling hard with the right crank at sbout 1 o'clock if looking from the side. It's not the seatpost as it happens when I'm out of the saddle. I played with the front derailleur to see if that helped which it seemed to and a good oiling also helped. I thought the chain might be hitting something causing the click but it's difficult to find out. You need to have someone else with you watching and listening but that's a bit difficult at 20 mph!!

I do love the bike though.

bombdogs

Try greasing up the rear skewers - same thing happened to me on my new Trek madone. If that fails, then it's defo the bb bearings - take them to your lbs and get them regreases. sometimes a little bit of dirt gets in and causes havoc

robgodd

Probably not this, but is there a shim in the frame where the seatpost clamps in? I had a random ticking noise that was driving me mad, and eventually found it to be the shim that needed taking out / cleaning off / re-greasing. Silence after that was done.

JKO

Guys, thanks for your responses. Its good to know its not just mine which ticks!

Will try some of your suggestions and if all else fails will ask the lbs to have a look.

Thanks again

John

CrookedCucumber

Swap the pedals with somebody else's. It only takes five minutes, and will immediately tell you if pedal bearing wear is blame.

Voytek

I went to my shop where I bought my bike and they told me my rear deraileuur was bent in, what was apparently responsible for the ticking noise. straightening it up didn't help so I will definitely try to grease up rear skewers and cassete beacuse that noise is DRVING ME MAD! and although bike is running as smooth as it gets I can't stand it and ended up listening to music on my phone while driving which is not perfect for keeping your "road awareness" on top of it's game will report if grease helped...

dennisn

I think I said this this just the other day but here goes. It seems, at least to me, that almost
all noises, on bikes, seem to come from the pedal and or bottom bracket area. Even the
ones that I have found that came from the seatpost, stem, the seat itself, rear skewer,
and handlebars, to name a few, all sounded like they were coming from the BB-pedal
area. And of course it's only WHEN you pedal. Never on a stand or coasting. So, be alert
that just about anywhere two pieces of material are held together you have a potential
squeak, creak, tick, or whatever. I cured one a while back by lubing the area where a
saddle rail attached to the base of the saddle. I try to avoid ripping things apart until I
have made sure it's not something stupid like the above mentioned saddle rail.


Dennis Noward

Garry H

Check that it's not the rear mech touching the spokes. Is it more prevalent in any given gear?

donaldinho

JKO wrote:

I have a 6 month old Planet X carbon SL bike which has developed an irritating habit. I seem to get a ticking noise on each revolution of the pedal when it is under pressure. However, if I turn the pedals with no pressure on (when on a bike stand for example), no noise.

It doesn't sound much but after a long ride with this noise in the background its a real pain.

Seems to be coming from the crank area, or rear mech and I have tried the usual tightening of seat, seat clamp, handlebars and stem.

Could the bottom bracket be faulty or is it a sealed unit. It is all ultegra.

Grateful for any thoughts.

John

Hi John,

this sounds like exactly the problem I had a few weeks back.
In my case it was the bottom bracket, needed tightened and greased.
The LBS [the seriously EXCELLENT Edinburgh Bicycle Works]
sorted it for me in no time for not much money.

Good luck,

Donald