Bicycle Mechanics - Rough Pedal

I ihave a 2 week old Trek MTB. I am having trouble with it. Obviously I will return it to the dealer but I wanted to solicite some opinions here.

I was just riding along on pavement and started to notice a 'hitch' in my right pedal. At the top of the pedal stroke I can feel something rough. I can't see anything obvious, but every time my crank is at 12 o'clock and headed down it sends a slight vibration through my right foot. It is also audible in the quiet. What could this be??

The very first thing is check to see that your chain isn't rubbing the front derailleur cage at that position you're talking about. Prop your bike up and see.

Another thing i should mention is that the bike only does this under pressure. IOW, if I am not applying at least some force to the right pedal, it is unnoticed. I can put the bike in the bike rack and pedal it all day and you never hear or feel a thing.

When it is on the road and I am pedaling i can feel the right pedal move past 12 o'clock nearly every time. I felt this symptom develop all at once. It is not a major symptom. The closest thing I can equate it to is someone very slightly tapping on the bottom of my foot with a small hammer each time it goes past the 12 oclock.

Again, I can lift it off of the ground and pedal all day with no symptoms. The front derailler is not touching anything. Also I can try various gears and notice the problem just about everywhere that I applying any force to the right pedal. I have checked the right crank and pedal and they are tight.

I had a similar problem on my old Hard Rock. It made me crazy and it got worse to the point where I could hear it all the time. For me, it turned out the pedal was not tight enough.

Try removing the pedal, grease the threads a bit and screw it back on tightly. It may look tight enough, but pedals can take quite a bit of torque so bear down on it a bit. A nice pedal wrench with a longer handle is better than a small adjustable wrench.

This could save you the trip to the dealer and the hassle of swapping the bike, but if it is that new, you may want to have them look at it anyway since there is no telling if there is anything else screwed up when they assembled it.

Hope this helps.

- Jeff

If you have another pedal handy try a quick substitution and a ride around the block.

Also, check your cleat bolts for tightness or any other possible cleat malfunction.

Next step: Check bottom bracket. Check to see if cups are tight.

Right pedal was a little loose. Nice work guys. You are great. Thanks again!!!!

Pedal? ....... Geez, that would have been the least of suspect. Oh well, I can only assume so because I was the last and only person who installed my pedals. Since your LBS did the pedal install, it's good to check every component in that area. Glad you nailed it down.

Yeah, a loose pedal was my last suspect, too. :)

I did not get the noise by putting load on the pedals in different directions so before removing the cranks and BB, thought I would check the bearings on the pedals. However, after I got it off, I realized that I did not know how to pull the pedal apart so I just screwed it back on and went to bed.

On my way to work the next morning, the sound was gone. For some reason, just taking it off and putting back on again, made it go away.

After a while (and after banging it around on a various stationary objects) it starting up again, but by this time I had a decent sized pedal wrench so I was able to torque it up a bit more. It never came back. I can't tell you why it happens, but I can tell you that it was because the pedals needed to be tightened.

They were the cheap stock platform pedals that came with the bike. I had added toe clips, but I don't think that had much to do with it. I have clipless now and would have forgotten all about this if not for Ranger's post.

Glad that things worked out.

- Jeff

Great that your problem is solved.

Another potential problem is a loose crank. If only slightly loose, you would get symptoms like that.