Diagnose me this noise

greg66_tri_v2.0

Before hols Bike 2 was making a bit of a racket. Perhaps I'd grown used to it, but feck me, when I got back it was awful. It sounded *exactly* as if there were a handful of broken and loose bearings in the BB. Every pedal stroke: clackclack, clackclack, clackityclackclack. It was so bad that I had become slightly embarrassed to be riding it.

This morning, for no good reason, something twigged in the back of my mind. I'd had this before. And found a fix.

I opened the rear QR, tightened it about 1.5 turns, and closed it again. Off I went.

The clack reduced from an 13 on a 1-10 scale to a 1. Instantly.

OK. So that's the solution. But what's the problem that causes a dreadful racket that can be cured like that? I'm thinking perhaps loose cassette lockring.

Ideas?

veronese68

Until the quick release bit I thought it's your leg breaking after all that silly running malarkey.
Worn wheel bearings that the QR is holding together?

tgotb

Either:
1. It's a cup & cone hub, the cones/lockrings are slightly loose, and the QR helped squeeze everything together. Long term solution is to adjust the cones/lockrings properly.
2. The noise was actually produced within your ear, as a result of water in the ear canal. In the act of adjusting the QR, you also tipped out the water. Long solution is to cut out this ridiculous triantelopism.

Edit: I remember now, I've actually had this. In my case it was a broken rear axle, being held together by the QR.

rjsterry

If the cones are just loose, then tightening the QR won't tighten the bearings, as the cones are held in place by the threads on the axle. Which leads to TGOTB's latter conclusion. Time to strip the rear hub and have a look, methinks.

tgotb

If it is a broken axle, you don't have to strip the rear hub; just remove the QR and it will happily dismantle itself...

Kieran_Burns

My cup and cone bearing set made a nightmare clacking sound not unlike the one you describe; which turned out to be a replacement hub required (I went mad and got Hope Pro 2s they're purdy...)

Completely wrecked them cycling through knee deep water... go figure.

edhornby

check the skewer as well, grease (lighly) the skewer and the hub where it grips the dropout

greg66_tri_v2.0

That got my attention.

Just had the rear wheel off. The rear axle seems rock solid. There's maybe 1/10 mm of (silent) play if I really maul it, but happily it didn't fall to pieces in my hands.

greg66_tri_v2.0

That's just reminded me: I recall once before having a very loose lockring. That manifested itself with appalling shifting - I tried to re-index it before realising that you can't index a cassette very easily if the sprockets are swaying from side to side. Not getting that sort of problem this time though.

Hmm.

graeme_s-2

I've had a lockring that was only slightly lose before, and this led to a very slight noise that could be more felt than heard. Not the tortured grinding noise that you are reporting. It was a guy in a bikeshop who diagnosed it for me after confirming the hub was fine. Just a very slight side-to-side rotational play on a couple of the cogs.

EKE_38BPM

Probably your hip.

itboffin

I had a loose ring once a high fibre diet sorted it out.

EKE_38BPM

itboffin wrote:

I had a loose ring once a high fibre diet sorted it out.

Was it after meeting HeadHuunter in the Morpeth loos at the SCR Xmas piss-up?

team47b

The noise is a groan that you hear when a verb is followed by an object pronoun

rubertoe

I think its my hip.