Lawrence08648

On a 50 mile ride yesterday and at 45 miles I heard a loud rattling noise, I thought it was a motorcycle behind me or cars but it wasn't. I was going between 17-22 mph and slowed and it went away and as I sped up it came back, slowing down it stopped. I pulled over and spun the wheel and it seemed fine. When I stopped pedaling and coasted the noise was still there so it wasn't coming from the bb. When I slowed I didn't hear the noise, 2 miles down the road and 2 miles from the end of the ride, I heard the rattling noise as slow as 10mph and it was continuous and as I sped up, it became louder. When I returned home, I put the bike on my stand and turned the crank and I heard nothing. I shook the cassette and turned the axle and felt nothing, smooth and no play. I removed the cassette and turned the freewheel and it seemed to be fine. It spun fine with no noise. I took the axle out and looked at the bearings and they were well lubricated. I then assembled it and rode around the block and heard nothing. Today I rode 35 miles and I did not hear anything. What's up? I was thinking the freewheel was going. I thought I would wait until the noise comes back, or comes back more frequently and gets worse. Could something break loose inside the freewheel and lock it up causing a sudden lock up of the rear wheel and dumping me on the ground?

wrk101

1. How old is the bike? How many miles on it?

2. Freewheel or cassette (there is a big difference).

3. Bearings and grease are cheap, if you are going to open it up, I would spend another 50 cents or so on new bearings and grease.

4. Any noise loud enough to sound like a motorcycle behind me would cause me to park the bike. Bikes under load can make noises that a bike on a workstand will never make. I test ride bikes up a big hill near my house to see what they do under load. Note, I am not recommending this for you. But bikes that run super smooth on my stand sometimes ride differently up that hill.

Airburst

Could be a broken pawl in the freewheel. Were you pedalling unusually hard, or in a low gear, at some point before the rattling began? What model is the hub?

Lawrence08648

Maybe I over exaggerated about the motorcycle but I did look around me for one.

The bike is 5 years old, 35,000 miles on it, with a cassette. The wheel was given to me and I’ve put 10,000-15,000 on the wheel but I don’t think it has a lot of mileage on it.

The hub is Shimano 105.

I wasn’t pedaling unusually hard, it was an easy ride and the few hills were light..If the pawl was broken, I figure it would still be broken and still making noise.

When I took the wheel apart, there was a lot of grease in there and I use synthetic but I put just another dab in.

longbeachgary

Man that's a lot of miles. I recently had a rattle that was driving me crazy. My mechanic said that sometimes pieces of metal break off and rattle around inside the rim.

TomM

I had this happen on a Mavic wheel.