Oh, it’s time for the creaks and creaks of cycling! It’s spring again! WOOHOO!!!
You’d think things like through axles would have virtually done away with creaking and clicking! After all these years, you’d think they’d finally have figured out the dreaded bottom bracket creaks and clicks (they did, mostly, if you have threaded bottom brackets, anyway).
Yeah, nerp. Though, to be fair, thru-axles are absolutely badass and are fantastic.
My wife and I happened on a new and exciting creak/click after a fine early spring of gravel riding on the tandem. Now, we’ve got fenders for the gnarlier days riding, especially for gravel and dirt roads, but it still gets quite dirty.
So, I set the steed up for the road when the weather started warming up a bit. And our first paved ride, the bike sounded horrible. It creaked and clicked… my wife actually said it sounded like we were half-geared! I almost got it home and went straight to work on the bottom brackets, but I knew those were clean. So I thought about it… what could be wrong?
The next ride was just as “clicky” and I was getting mad. I did the old, “this is a brand new bike, how could this be?” in my head. My wife and I put the tandem in the bike room and I looked at the synchronizing belt and thought, “wow, that looks a little dusty.” I went in for a closer inspection. There was dust and even a little grit in the belt drive.
Just enough to make our ride noisy.
Long story short(er), I took a toothbrush and some dish soap and went to town on the synchro belt, taking a few more minutes than necessary to get the dirt out. Then a rise, and a dry, then let it sit overnight to completely dry out.
The next ride was damn-near silent but for the noise of the tires on asphalt. A new lesson learned!
Fit Recovery 