Noisy Ultegra drivetrain

MattFalle

beauty in the eye of the beholder?

MattFalle

after all, everyone has the prettiest wife at home.

First.Aspect

MattFalle said:

after all, everyone has the prettiest wife at home.

I don't imagine anyone buys Shimano stuff because it looks nice. On account of it is all fairly gopping.

ibr17xvii

First.Aspect said:

ibr17xvii said:

First.Aspect said:

ibr17xvii said:

First.Aspect said:

How much of this so called 'noise' is actually because people are riding overly stiff plastic bikes with plastic wheels each with 12 spokes at higher tension than a friendly meeting between Boris and Macron, and oversized hollow axles and wotnot. They are all acoustic transmitters.

Pretty sure that doesn’t apply to everyone.

The rest are just badly set up.

Or maybe they are correctly set up & it’s just noisy.

In that case how is it that some of them are quiet?

If I knew that I wouldn’t need to post on the thread.

In my case mine was installed / set up by an ex pro mechanic so I’m as confident as I can be.

ibr17xvii

First.Aspect said:

MattFalle said:

after all, everyone has the prettiest wife at home.

I don't imagine anyone buys Shimano stuff because it looks nice. On account of it is all fairly gopping.

Read the thread title & you’ll notice it’s not about how it looks.

Maybe start a new thread if you want to have a debate about that.

First.Aspect

.

daniel_b

Do we know yet if the new 12 spd is any quieter/easier to remove the back wheel?

Is the newish SRAM AXS Rival (?) quieter.........?

I'm idly considering a bike that comes with either the 12 spd Di2 Ultegra, or the 12 spd SRAM.

ibr17xvii

daniel_b said:

Do we know yet if the new 12 spd is any quieter/easier to remove the back wheel?

Is the newish SRAM AXS Rival (?) quieter.........?

I'm idly considering a bike that comes with either the 12 spd Di2 Ultegra, or the 12 spd SRAM.

I'd say they'd struggle to make it any noisier / harder.

The new RD is still the shadow design so probably not much different.

As for noise seems to be very much a case of what cassette / chain combo you use. My KMC X11SL has never been the greatest in terms of noise but fortunately it's due to be changed before I put the bike on the turbo for winter so will try a DA 11 speed or maybe even one of the XTR 12 speed chains which are supposed to work well according to the WW forum.

itboffin

just fitted a new Ultegra R8000 groupset to my CAAD12 and its rubbing in the top & bottom three of each crossover gear ranges added to which it looks like my FSA big chainring is bent ?!?

itboffin

ibr17xvii said:

itboffin said:

Shimano directional chains are noisy if fitted the wrong way and I don’t think KMC make their chains anymore

I had horrible chain noise until I swapped my Ultegra for KMC sl I now have a noisy KMC with Ultegra and absolute black oval rings a new noise I can’t trace

Similar to my experience.

It just intrigues me why KMC chains don't appear to play nice with DA & Ultegra in the majority of cases yet with 105 they seem OK.

I'm continuing my battle for quiet running R8000 setups, now across four bikes.

two are Cannondales and have their own SI cranksets, one is complete R8000 and the other a Cervelo with Rotor 3D crankset and oval rings.

The two CAADs are acceptable noise level in terms of chains but front indexing on the other hand is a bag of rusty spanners, no matter how much i adjust i cannot get the front mech clearance in the big/big and big/small combos not to touch the cage.

After a ton of messing around and watching how to videos, what is really clear is that aside from the extreme chain line angle of these disc braked bikes, it looks like the chain distance varies from different crankarm positions. I've ruled out bent chainrings, bolt torque and the chain itself. The crank spiders on these are straight as well, one of them has also recently had a new BB the other is brand new.

My only conclusion is the frame BB shells cannot be aligned straight. Should i shim the most extreme chainring bolt?

Now for the all Ultegra bike, changing the chain from KMC to Ultegra 100% fixed that noise. #Win

The final bike with its mix of cranks, rings and groupset surprisingly shifts very well but again indexing rubs in the extreme combos, also the chain has somehow dropped off to the right twice in one ride and i know the front mech limit screws are correct.

My conclusion on this bike is, oval rings are just noisy full stop! oval rings somehow allow chain dropping which i'm yet to figure out how.
This bike is a 2012 R5 so rim brakes no weird rear spacing, standard chainline and yet it still fouls the mech cage.

To make matters worse the setup video (2018) on Absolute Blacks website is completely different to Shimano's own 'new series' indexing instructions, whereby you do your high/low setup in small/big and big/big.

Wheelspinner

itboffin said:

ibr17xvii said:

itboffin said:

Shimano directional chains are noisy if fitted the wrong way and I don’t think KMC make their chains anymore

I had horrible chain noise until I swapped my Ultegra for KMC sl I now have a noisy KMC with Ultegra and absolute black oval rings a new noise I can’t trace

Similar to my experience.

It just intrigues me why KMC chains don't appear to play nice with DA & Ultegra in the majority of cases yet with 105 they seem OK.

I'm continuing my battle for quiet running R8000 setups, now across four bikes.

two are Cannondales and have their own SI cranksets, one is complete R8000 and the other a Cervelo with Rotor 3D crankset and oval rings.

The two CAADs are acceptable noise level in terms of chains but front indexing on the other hand is a bag of rusty spanners, no matter how much i adjust i cannot get the front mech clearance in the big/big and big/small combos not to touch the cage.

After a ton of messing around and watching how to videos, what is really clear is that aside from the extreme chain line angle of these disc braked bikes, it looks like the chain distance varies from different crankarm positions. I've ruled out bent chainrings, bolt torque and the chain itself. The crank spiders on these are straight as well, one of them has also recently had a new BB the other is brand new.

My only conclusion is the frame BB shells cannot be aligned straight. Should i shim the most extreme chainring bolt?

Now for the all Ultegra bike, changing the chain from KMC to Ultegra 100% fixed that noise. #Win

The final bike with its mix of cranks, rings and groupset surprisingly shifts very well but again indexing rubs in the extreme combos, also the chain has somehow dropped off to the right twice in one ride and i know the front mech limit screws are correct.

My conclusion on this bike is, oval rings are just noisy full stop! oval rings somehow allow chain dropping which i'm yet to figure out how.
This bike is a 2012 R5 so rim brakes no weird rear spacing, standard chainline and yet it still fouls the mech cage.

To make matters worse the setup video (2018) on Absolute Blacks website is completely different to Shimano's own 'new series' indexing instructions, whereby you do your high/low setup in small/big and big/big.

I like oval rings and use them on a few of my MTB in 1x config, but they are still noisy (a bit) there. I've tried them on roadies with a double up front and even using older 6700 gear I had issues with front shifting. Rear was ok, and I had very little cage rub but despite a lot of tweaking of the FD I never got reliable stress free shifting - always had to be careful or dropped chain results. I eventually gave up on them.

ibr17xvii

itboffin said:

ibr17xvii said:

itboffin said:

Shimano directional chains are noisy if fitted the wrong way and I don’t think KMC make their chains anymore

I had horrible chain noise until I swapped my Ultegra for KMC sl I now have a noisy KMC with Ultegra and absolute black oval rings a new noise I can’t trace

Similar to my experience.

It just intrigues me why KMC chains don't appear to play nice with DA & Ultegra in the majority of cases yet with 105 they seem OK.

I'm continuing my battle for quiet running R8000 setups, now across four bikes.

two are Cannondales and have their own SI cranksets, one is complete R8000 and the other a Cervelo with Rotor 3D crankset and oval rings.

The two CAADs are acceptable noise level in terms of chains but front indexing on the other hand is a bag of rusty spanners, no matter how much i adjust i cannot get the front mech clearance in the big/big and big/small combos not to touch the cage.

After a ton of messing around and watching how to videos, what is really clear is that aside from the extreme chain line angle of these disc braked bikes, it looks like the chain distance varies from different crankarm positions. I've ruled out bent chainrings, bolt torque and the chain itself. The crank spiders on these are straight as well, one of them has also recently had a new BB the other is brand new.

My only conclusion is the frame BB shells cannot be aligned straight. Should i shim the most extreme chainring bolt?

Now for the all Ultegra bike, changing the chain from KMC to Ultegra 100% fixed that noise. #Win

The final bike with its mix of cranks, rings and groupset surprisingly shifts very well but again indexing rubs in the extreme combos, also the chain has somehow dropped off to the right twice in one ride and i know the front mech limit screws are correct.

My conclusion on this bike is, oval rings are just noisy full stop! oval rings somehow allow chain dropping which i'm yet to figure out how.
This bike is a 2012 R5 so rim brakes no weird rear spacing, standard chainline and yet it still fouls the mech cage.

To make matters worse the setup video (2018) on Absolute Blacks website is completely different to Shimano's own 'new series' indexing instructions, whereby you do your high/low setup in small/big and big/big.

On my other bike with basically the same setup (apart from 50/34 on one & 52/36 on the other) the one with the compact was shipped with a Ultegra chain & it's night & day between the 2.

Not got round to taking off the KMC chain & replacing it with Ultegra yet but for me at least the chain itself makes a massive difference.

masjer

I think it's the upper jockey wheel makes a lot of the noise. They have a taller profile, which might make the chain engagement louder.
6800
R8000

lesfirth

I will just complicate things.
I have just built up a fresh bike with R8000 group set and a KMCx11-EL waxed chain.I know my ears don't work as good as they used to but on a quiet country lane I ride along in complete silence. My other bike with R8000 and waxed Shimano chain makes a noise that I had come to accept as not excessive but just normal.

benrawlings

I've been having this exact issue and stumbled on a fix - fit a SRAM 12 speed flattop chain.

I don't know why but running this on my Ultegra 8050 groupset, which has always been very noisy, makes it completely silent. Shifting is equally as good as, if not better than the 105 and ultegra chains it replaced, and I've had no chain slip even when sprinting.