I don’t know if this is normal or if this is a problem with my unicycle. I ride street, and if I use my unicycle for a couple hours the wheel will start to creak, I am wondering if I could fix this, because it is a little loud, and annoying.
Hey Gremlin,
That will be one of three things if it is your wheel that is creaking.
- The spokes. Make sure none of them have loosened.
- The cranks. If they are loose, you can tighten them, but you may need to change out the spacers behind the cranks for some thinner ones to make sure they are fitting snugly on the hub.
- It could be your bearings. They might need replaced, but they could also be the wrong size. Unicycle bearings come in 40mm dia. and 42mm. If your bearings don’t fit correctly in your frame, it could cause undue wear and noise. Finally, if your frame brackets are clamped too tightly around the bearings, it can also cause problems.
Hope this helps!
TrevEv
2 Likes
I remember when I was tweaking my first wheel build and riding it the first couple times, I noticed there was some creaking when I applied pressure to the pedals when I was stopping. I thought it might’ve been the spokes, though I later found I had the bearing caps too loose. I would tighten them only just until they couldn’t be moved using my fingers, though under load it still allowed the hub to move slightly. Just a smidge tighter on the bearing cap bolts and that solved the issue. Add that to the list of possibilities noted in the post above 
Absolutely. Another possible but improbable issue could be a two piece hub starting to crack. I sincerely hope that is not the case, as one would need three different specialty tools and a new hub to fix that…
5 Likes
Thank You! I will check.