Hey, i have an annoying creak coming from my right pedal/upper crank area, even though i have tightened the crank and pedal. any ideas how to stop this, cause its annoying the hell outta me.
Check the bolts holding the frame onto the bearings. I’ve had that problem recently and even checked my spokes as I thought the creaking was from there. Turned out to be the bolts holding the frame to the bearings.
could be the spokes if it’s not the pedal or crank. just check everything and tighten everything up.
It could be a problem with the bearings inside your pedal, wobble or rattle your pedal and if you hear a noise coming from it it’s probably the bearing and you will have to either tighten it or replace it. Either that or search the forum because there are many threads on noise problems.
Are you sure it’s not a pinging sound. You get this when the spokes wear slightly at the cross and then ‘ping’ in and out of the groove when under load…
I’ve been getting this kind of sound. It definitely sounds like a spoke pinging.
I haven’t been able to recreate it when I’m not riding.
I guess I squeeze crossing spokes and look/feel/listen for these grooves?
Squeesing the spokes together will also make the pinging sound. Occasionally it is only one but often it is the whole set that is going. The solution is to grease between the spokes and this normally sorts it depending on how big the grooves are. It is normally worse on painted spokes where they have also gone slightly rusty where the paint has rubbed off. I have also read somewhere that you can put a small bit of plastic from a plastic wallet etc. between the spokes which is almost invisible but I would have thought that this would wear out pretty quickly.
You should first tighten your spokes so they do not move so much under load. Often new spokes aren’t tightened quite enough so the wear appears more quickly. It is also more common on unicycles because all of your weight is over one wheel so the spokes move, especially over bumpy ground…
The best solution is to buy some new spokes. Stainless ones that aren’t painted are best but if you want to stick to black or coloured ones try to get stainless ones still. Coloured spokes are normally not as good quality as plain silver coloured stainless ones.
Hope this helps,
Mowcius
Ok I got a creaking problem on my Muni me too. My bearing are creaking after like 15 minutes of riding everytime I ride. It started to do that sound 1 week ago and I never had that problem before. I know it’s not my spokes. Does anyone know what is the problem?
Though if you don’t know how to true a wheel, I don’t think you should be messing with spoke tightness. Even if you are going to tighten every spoke the same exact amount, you’d better be prepared to true it afterward.
I agree, but if you tighten each one the same amount then it is normally not problematic. Often people’s unicycle wheels are not perfectly true anyway because it is not much of an issue unless you are fitting brakes. My wheel is slightly off true because I have just not got round to trueing it yet and it is not a real issue…
Mowcius
Check the seat and seat post, I had some creaking and it turned out to be a broken seat post.
So, how do you true a wheel?
Quasi-arbitrarily tightening spokes until it doesn’t wobble any more…
Or
Tighten spokes from one side of the hub that will pull the rim back to center. Depending on the amount of correction required you may need to loosen the opposite side to allow the rim to move. When I’ve done it, I will turn the spoke(s) in the middle of a wobble more than the spokes at the edges of the wobble. Using this method, I’ve been able to get a mild wobble back to the point where rim-brakes don’t interfere but I’ve never got it perfect.
That’s why I haven’t got round to it yet…
It is just a case of tighten a spoke to move the wheel that side or both sets to move the rim in slightly… When you have a used tyre it is more difficult to true up and down due to different wear on the tyre but this is not normally the issue.
First, tap all your spokes to see if they sound the same, if some are a lower tone where the rim is off true then just tighten them up a bit and that might sort it but it is a slow procedure that some people say is very relaxing!
There are lots of tutorials online but normally a bit of common sense and trial and error can get you pretty close!
Mowcius
JUst so you guys know, this is my new Nimbus Trials 20" with ISIS hub, relativly new, onkly had it about a month. thanks for all the imput guys, its helped a lot, ive tightened everthing, apart from the spokes, and ill check it this arvo.
If this is a new uni and you’ve checked that everything is tight, I’d definitely try putting something between the spokes where they cross to see if that fixes it before you start tightening them all. A bit of paper or a thin ribbon - anything to stop them from rubbing.
I want to learn to true a wheel and properly tighten my spokes, and the advice given so far has been helpful. However, I’m reluctant to just go ahead and learn to true the wheel of my trials uni by trial and error. Maybe I’ll slug through Sheldon Brown’s wheelbuilding tutorial, then practice un-truing and re-truing my learner’s uni in my spare time?
Sorry to take over this thread with my own questions. To TheJoker: I hope that everything worked out, and that your unicycle is nice and noise-free.
There are a lot of good wheel truing tutorials online but the best thing to do once you have seen a few if to have a go… The worst you can do is make it more squiffy and then you could take it to a local bike shop and i’m sure they would sort it out for a small fee.
Mowcius
Gasp! How about using a trashed bicycle to practice on instead? Surely those are easier to come by and less useful than a functional unicycle…
I’m wondering what you would consider a small fee? I took mine to a shop and they wanted $40.