With nothing better to do at silly o'clock this morning I got the bike out of the vault, removed the BB again,
slathered on anti-seize again, did it up tight as I could then a little tighter, then carried it up our mucky driveway and headed into the quiet lanes in civilian shoes <the horror>. I use toeclips so it can't be cleats, but was being thorough even though I wear the same shoes on other bikes without incident.
I heard the creaking but not as bad. And not all the time. This is part of the problem: it can be quite variable.
Does it creak when riding no-hands? Is there a shim in the seat tube? Does it creak on both pedal strokes or just one side? Does it creak when pedalling hard on the flat or just up hill? Does it creak when you pedal hard with 1 or 2 brakes dragging? Can you get it to creak while not moving? Where does the creak sound like it originates from? High-pitched or low?
I can't get it to creak while not moving, nor no-handed (or when freewheeling. Thanks for the list, fruitcake. Have checked all those things, and checked again.) Today it would only complain when I was going steeply uphill, but I have been able to bring it on pedalling hard or up out of the saddle on the flat.
Bearing down on the right pedal summons it, though when it's really acting up, the left can bring it on to a lesser extent. I tried dragging the brakes but it was difficult and the results inconclusive. Am interested to know why you asked me to do that particular thing.
There is a shim in the seat tube. Haven't checked it lately. Guess I should.
The noise seems to be coming from the BB, as so many of them do.
As for the quality of the sound, the best I can describe it is a kind of ratcheting noise with a bunch of ticks. [edited to add
link to sound file]
I took it out again later in the day for a longer ride and could barely make it happen partway through, and not at all by the end of the ride.
Stupid question alert: do some lubricants just stop working? This latest incident after that 6 weeks of peace came after a week or so without riding, almost as if it's a shark and needs to keep moving. On the other hand, I've also had the noise start only
after riding for 20 miles or so. It's almost enough to drive a person insane.
In the past I've also tried PTFE tape - perhaps not enough? - but not carbon paste or threadlock.
quixoticgeek, I haven't tried getting someone else to ride it, because there is literally no one else around here I could get to do that. As a result I can sometimes be seen riding along with my ear practically on the stem, concentrating hard.
I suspected the front end for awhile, and played around with it quite a bit. Eventually changed everything because an unrelated issue which cropped up: a Chris King headset apparently gone bad, which I had assumed to be against the natural order of the universe.
Haven't yet tried oiling wheel eyelets, but figured to have eliminated that and spoke problems in general by swapping out both wheels.
BFC, I'll have a closer look at the chainring out of curiosity, but have also swapped that out. Have definitely thrown a new chain or two at it. I do have some concern about the fact that this uses a 'perfect gear' to achieve singlespeedom and if that has anything to do with it…
I believe that leaves mzo's thoughts about tyre pressures (they're topped up almost every other ride) and cadence problem of some sort, which enters the realm of the possibly unknowable.
More questions: to what extent might having things too loose or even too tight be an issue? I don't have one of those fancy tools that gets me to just the right torque. Also, I gather there's some disagreement as to whether the spindles should be greased. What say ye?
Finally we have the matter of the exorcism. It's always dangerous to mess with unholy forces – look what happened to Father Karras. At the very least the creakdemon really could take up residence in my knees. But an appeal to a higher power seemed worth a shot. Thus I found myself laying out titles carefully chosen to attract attention from above, like HELP on a beach or the roof of a skyscraper in an alien attack movie.
We'll see.