Creaking Rear End

Have you checked your pedals and your bottom bracket?

It's gota be the drivetrain, odds on the bracket.
Bill.

sculler said:

I noticed my bike starts creaking when pedaling hard and am not sure where its coming from. I've checked all the spokes and all are ok.

Any ideas anybody?

Cheers

Cheers - I will have a look.

Do you mean the bearings in the crank are going?

Creaking sounds have a tendency to come from places other than where you think the sound is comming from;
- Cracked Frame
- Pedal
- Bottom Bracket
- Rear Wheel
- Seat Post
- Handlebar stem
- Forks
- Front Wheel

If its an alloy bike with a carbon seat post, I'd put good odds on it being that.

Good luck

sculler said:

Cheers - I will have a look.

Do you mean the bearings in the crank are going?

I would certainly check it out. Try and spiin the cranks with the chain looped out of the way to see if you can hear anything strange.
Bill.

I done some more testing to try and identify the problem and note if I stand on one of the cranks with the brakes on I get the creaking noise and the same noise when I take my foot off.

I'm not touching the saddle so it cant be that and I'm sure it is coming from the bottom rear end somewhere. I guess it must be either the wheel or the bottom bracket but not sure if I should really worry about it.

When did you last clean and lube the BB? Sounds like the culprit.

azdroptop said:

When did you last clean and lube the BB? Sounds like the culprit.

How many bikes have a cleanable/lubricatable BB these days? You just ride it until it dies, and then replace it.

artemidorus said:

How many bikes have a cleanable/lubricatable BB these days? You just ride it until it dies, and then replace it.

Well I took mine out the other day, Campy record, and had a ton of grit and dirt around it, the threads etc. cleaned it up, regreased and my minor creaking went away. Creak with Al soloist and carbon cranks seem to be the norm. Sorry for the confusion. Didn't mean repacking bearings.

sculler said:

I done some more testing to try and identify the problem and note if I stand on one of the cranks with the brakes on I get the creaking noise and the same noise when I take my foot off.

I'm not touching the saddle so it cant be that and I'm sure it is coming from the bottom rear end somewhere. I guess it must be either the wheel or the bottom bracket but not sure if I should really worry about it.

If your frame has two-piece rear dropouts, that's another thing to check. A bit of moisture got in under the paint on my dropout and caused corrosion under the steel screw head. Took me about a year to find the source, and 5 minutes to fix it 🙂

In case it's useful, the great Howard Zinn has a few words on mystery creaks in a recent VeloNews Q&A:

http://www.velonews.com/tech/report/articles/11986.0.html

There's nothing worse than a creaking back end except sitting next to someone with one. 😄

Pedals are the first thing to check because they are very often the culprit and they are easier and quicker to service than the BB.

sculler said:

I noticed my bike starts creaking when pedaling hard and am not sure where its coming from. I've checked all the spokes and all are ok.

Any ideas anybody?

Cheers

There are a lot of pieces of diagnostic information that you haven't given us. Does it creak only when you sit, or also when you stand? Does it stop creaking when you clip in and pedal on one side only, or the other? Is there a creak once every wheel rotation, once every crank rotation or some other pattern? Have you done any work on your bike recently, or had a crash?