Spent 2 hours chasing a ghost noise on a customer's bike in Portland

I was dead set that the creaking on this Trek Domane was coming from the bottom bracket. After pulling it apart and regreasing everything twice (waste of an hour), I finally noticed the rear derailleur hanger was slightly bent. Took me another 45 minutes to straighten it and reset the indexing. Has anyone else been stumped by a noise that turned out to be something totally different than you expected?

2 comments

2 Comments

wren65221d ago

Three years ago I would have bet money that any mystery creak was the bottom bracket. Then I had a customer's bike that sounded exactly like a loose crank arm, drove me nuts for two hours before I realized the seatpost binder bolt was barely snug. Now I check the simple stuff first before tearing anything apart. That Domane derailleur hanger thing is a classic too, the noise travels through the frame and sounds like it's coming from the front. I've come to accept that my ears are basically useless for pinpointing bike noises.

jason11221d ago

So when is someone going to invent a stethoscope for bikes that actually works on carbon frames? @wren652 mentioned the seatpost binder bolt thing and I swear I chased a click on my buddy's Specialized for three hours only to find out it was a loose valve stem nut rattling around. Ears are useless, man. I'm convinced half the time the noise is just the bike gaslighting you.