So I found the source of this annoying click (a long tale)...

[Dodgy-Knee]

File this one under Say What...

I went for a 'quiet' ride early Saturday morning... at least it would have been quiet if it wasn't for this persistent 'tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-...' ... it was reasonably loud and it was giving me the whoops.

I tried not to let it bug me too much so I continued riding for a few hours but always followed by this 'tick-a-tick-a-tick-a' noise... ggrrrrrrrrr... eventually it got the better of me.

I tried to locate the source as I freewheeled... I was like a circus act - trying to keep the bike pointed straight and on the road as I bent and twisted everywhere to try and work out where this sound was coming from... I originally thought it was the indexing on either my front or rear derailleur but worked out pretty quickly that it couldn't be as I could still hear it when I stopped pedalling...

The noise seemed to be coming from the front wheel ... I had a similar problem with my back wheel which turned out to be a chewed up wheel bearing so I was expecting the worst... I gave the wheel a spin and 'tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick...' ... hmmmmmm .. definitely the wheel.

When I got home I removed the wheel and gave it a spin... dead quiet and smooth as smooth... no clicks or creaks or noise... I pressed the hubs together hard as it rotated and it was still perfect (which in a weird way wasn't good... back to square one).

I substituted the front wheel with another one and gave it a spin... dead silence... I put back the original wheel... tick-a-tick-a-tick... it was definitely the wheel so I examined it closely (Zipp 202 carbon rim)... seemed OK... put it back...tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick-a-tick...

I zeroed in and it seemed as if the noise was coming from my front brake callipers (old school Dura Ace rim brakes) but there was heaps of clearance between the pads and the tyre... I rotated the wheel very slowly bit by bit until I heard.... tick .............tick ..... back a bit... repeat .... tick .............. tick ....... Say What???? ... tick........... tick ........ no ... NO WAY!!! ... it couldn't be...

I got out my trusty nail clippers and clipped every thin rubber strand from each side of the tyre (the thin strands left over from they make the tyre)... I put back the wheel and gave it a spin.... perfect, PERFECT silence.... I had put on a brand new tyre a few days before and the strands were so long that they were catching on the brake pads... each flick sounded like a tick (!!)

It just goes to show folks!

I hope all of you have a very quiet ride this week/weekend

[foo on patrol]

^^^^ ^^^^

Foo

[g-boaf]

I got out my trusty nail clippers and clipped every thin rubber strand from each side of the tyre (the thin strands left over from they make the tyre)... I put back the wheel and gave it a spin.... perfect, PERFECT silence.... I had put on a brand new tyre a few days before and the strands were so long that they were catching on the brake pads... each flick sounded like a tick (!!)

It just goes to show folks!

I hope all of you have a very quiet ride this week/weekend

Oh yes, I've had that before! Enough to drive you insane until you discover the source of the problem.

[antigee]

that's worse than it being the extended zip puller on your ( I mean my) jacket .... glad you found it

[Mr Purple]

Good detective work!

I had a similar tick a couple of years back that was driving me mad, especially on fast descents.

Turns out it was the sticker on a Schwalbe Pro One tyre that said 'tubed type only'. It was transparent so was next to invisible and was only lifting at speed.

Another trick is to check your cleats are secure. Because when you're chasing a creak you're normally focussed on the bike and never think to look at your shoes.

[CmdrBiggles]

In bicycle touring circles in the 1980s, rhythmic and extremely annoying ticks and clicks were traced to large batches of faulty chains with one or two stiff links from SunTour. Remedial action of working the culprit link back and forth only served to widen the link and impair shifting. Like so many p!ssed off cyclists, I was one of the sourpuss users of SunTour chains and derailleurs, especially around 1982 to 1985, and the cure was essentially to merrily strip out the whole transmission and replace it with Shimano — end of problem! As much as some people would tug fondly at the forelocks of the bygone era of SunTour, I was then, and would still be now an avowed avoider of their equipment. Hence a love affair with Shimano that carried on over the five bikes since those days (except the current roadie, which is SRAM...).

Tyres with rubber moulding tags on the sidewalls...almost as old a problem as the Penny Fathing!

[WyvernRH]

In bicycle touring circles in the 1980s, rhythmic and extremely annoying ticks and clicks were traced to large batches of faulty chains with one or two stiff links from SunTour. Remedial action of working the culprit link back and forth only served to widen the link and impair shifting. Like so many p!ssed off cyclists, I was one of the sourpuss users of SunTour chains and derailleurs, especially around 1982 to 1985, and the cure was essentially to merrily strip out the whole transmission and replace it with Shimano — end of problem! As much as some people would tug fondly at the forelocks of the bygone era of SunTour, I was then, and would still be now an avowed avoider of their equipment. Hence a love affair with Shimano that carried on over the five bikes since those days (except the current roadie, which is SRAM...).

Interesting... They must have sent all the dodgy ones out to the Colonies cos I didn't hear anything at all about that sort of problem with SunTour chains back in the UK in that period. Mind you, only racing guys used them, and they complained a lot about anything so I'm sure I would have heard about it. We tourists tended toward Sedis or Wipperman if you wanted 'Narrow' six speed as it was known then - also cheaper, which mattered to me as a junior engineer

You could have just changed the chain you know, it doesn't have to match the gear manufacturer...even used Shimano chains! IRRC correctly the first Shimano slant parallelogram touring derailleurs didn't hit the market till the mid-late 80's so they were not really up to SunTour standard over wide ranges until well after the first few Deore models.

Mind you, they trounced SunTour mightily once indexing stared to take hold further down the line....

Richard

[Duck!]

Not just SunTour, all pin-joined chains will get sticky at the joint if not seated properly, even Shimano HG. Simply shoving the link pin in will compress the link components against each other, causing them to bind. As a result, all self-respecting chain tools have a "spreader" seat additional to the main joining seat; with no back support to the join, a further 1/4 turn or so tweak on the tool will spread the link plates enough to eliminate binding. Shimano HG and similar newer chains with ridges that lock into place in the link plates will give you very good feedback if they're not set properly, and also when they are.

[baabaa]

In bicycle touring circles in the 1980s, rhythmic and extremely annoying ticks and clicks were traced to large batches of faulty chains with one or two stiff links from SunTour. Remedial action of working the culprit link back and forth only served to widen the link and impair shifting. Like so many p!ssed off cyclists, I was one of the sourpuss users of SunTour chains and derailleurs, especially around 1982 to 1985, and the cure was essentially to merrily strip out the whole transmission and replace it with Shimano — end of problem! As much as some people would tug fondly at the forelocks of the bygone era of SunTour, I was then, and would still be now an avowed avoider of their equipment. Hence a love affair with Shimano that carried on over the five bikes since those days (except the current roadie, which is SRAM...).

Interesting... They must have sent all the dodgy ones out to the Colonies cos I didn't hear anything at all about that sort of problem with SunTour chains back in the UK in that period. Mind you, only racing guys used them, and they complained a lot about anything so I'm sure I would have heard about it. We tourists tended toward Sedis or Wipperman if you wanted 'Narrow' six speed as it was known then - also cheaper, which mattered to me as a junior engineer

You could have just changed the chain you know, it doesn't have to match the gear manufacturer...even used Shimano chains! IRRC correctly the first Shimano slant parallelogram touring derailleurs didn't hit the market till the mid-late 80's so they were not really up to SunTour standard over wide ranges until well after the first few Deore models.

Mind you, they trounced SunTour mightily once indexing stared to take hold further down the line....

Richard

Not really as it sounds made up to me.
Had suntour stuff for touring (and commuting to school) at that time mainly because I would hang out and drool at a bike shop in Manly that was owned and run by a ex TDF bike mechanic. At that the time he had a huge volume of triathlon people wanting bikes and parts and servicing. He was a real leader in the early days of what worked with tri bikes back then ( for a time stamp kinda ore carbon so he sold and built up heaps of vitus bike frames)

I never heard this about suntour and in fact he would tell people to go suntour parts and not campy as it just worked very well.
If you could afford it Suntour XC pro, that was the best group set you could get for touring.
I moved a touring bike that came with shimano deerhead over to as much XC pro parts I could afford and honestly had to agree with the French bloke ( wish I could remember his name...)

I still have some old suntour bar end shifters,freewheels and chains (which I would always paraffin wax not oil) and even after many Kms they still work
Same can be said with the old hard core bike touring shop called Inner City Cycles in Glebe - big fans of all things suntour for long distance rides and touring.

What would be interesting to get Noel from Vivente take on this as pretty sure they had and used suntour stuff on the bikes they built

[baabaa]

AND...
Was hard to see a bike that was owned by any of the committee members of the old The Bicycle Institute of NSW that did not have some Suntour parts on it back then. ( https://bicyclensw.org.au/about/history/ )
Certainly the original Push On editor Neil was and still is a big suntour fan and he, like Noel did lots of bike touring around Aust and os....
Anyway nice thoughts about the days of strong racks and canvas pannier bags and kinda wish you could buy bike parts like than now. Think Microshift is on the right track in terms of quality vs price.

[CmdrBiggles]

AND...
Was hard to see a bike that was owned by any of the committee members of the old The Bicycle Institute of NSW that did not have some Suntour parts on it back then. ( https://bicyclensw.org.au/about/history/ )
Certainly the original Push On editor Neil was and still is a big suntour fan and he, like Noel did lots of bike touring around Aust and os....
Anyway nice thoughts about the days of strong racks and canvas pannier bags and kinda wish you could buy bike parts like than now. Think Microshift is on the right track in terms of quality vs price.

I am aware of Neil's history, as he was a regular visitor to the BIV in Melbourne in the 1980s for consulting and magazine articles (where I worked at the time with Ron and Alan A Parker). Neil's compatriot, the late great Ron Shepherd, was no fan of SunTour — and you could not win an argument over groupsests with Ron for his humungous knowlege of gearing and the best equipment to handle it; he even beat the equally late, great Frank Berto (USA) in dreaming up the best super-granny gears!

Campagnolo Rallye rear derailleurs were a fanciful addition to some cashed-up owners in the cycle touring landscape. One doesn't see much Campag equipment on touring bikes now, save for the last holdouts from 40 years ago who tag them as antiquities worth preserving. I think my last SunTour equipped tourer was disposed of in 1985 or '86.

Blackburn touring racks were the bees-knees, but they fractured and the soft alloy material was gouged abundantly through normal use. Yep, the good ol' days of Karrimor front and rears, Blackurn racks and front low-riders, toe-clip pedals and Eureka flags on fluoro orange visibility poles...

[MoeJoe]

I got out my trusty nail clippers and clipped every thin rubber strand from each side of the tyre (the thin strands left over from they make the tyre)... I put back the wheel and gave it a spin.... perfect, PERFECT silence.... I had put on a brand new tyre a few days before and the strands were so long that they were catching on the brake pads... each flick sounded like a tick (!!)

I've ahd this one also.

Another one that succeeded to drive me crazy was when I fit a wheelset with 28mm tyres as a swap from the previous 23mm. The added tyre volume used up a bit more room as expected but still cleared the frame, forks and brakes fine - all good and off we go. Until a bit of mud stuck to the underside of the front caliper and an occasional tick-tick started but was only noticeable during corners or where the bike must have flexed a tiny bit.

A noisy bike flicks my OCD switch and I will hunt down the source til the end of time even if it kills me.