sailstosea

Hey, I recently bought a new track bike but my often when I stand up to get some speed, my left crank arm makes a weird creaking sound. Does anyone know what might be causing this?

Lenkeit

It's probably loose. Tighten it down with an allen key (make sure not to apply too much torque, though). Creaking can also come from a lack of properly greased bb and/or its interface with the crank arm.

Tomo_Ishi

Hey,

You did not ride it for long, right? Mine started to creak on the way to school and I had to ride over there and back. This made a permanent damage to the crank.

T

novacane

its probably just loose, you need to crank down on it harder is all, i also sometimes clean off the bb pin because if there's grit in there it could make it harder to get it as tight as it should be. there's probably no permanent damage to your crank, let alone any damage at all, yet.

BYRDO444

THIS HAPPENED TO MINE TOO!!!!

make sure you have a washer between your pedals and your cranks. on newer cranks you need these to prevent the cranks from getting stripped.

also make sure your cranks are SUPER tight and everything down there is tight. my problem was the pedals in the cranks.

operator

Asking the SSFG forum for mechanical advice is like like playing russian roulette with a shotgun.

1) Pedal washers are only needed when you use pedals that do not have a rounded off section at the end of the spindle - e.g wrench flats are squared off
2) Crank bolts have a torque spec, usually around 35NM
3) Just because you hear noise coming from the left crank arm side when you are hammering doesn't mean the crankarm is causing the noise. Noises can come from anywhere on the bike

Read this before posting further: https://www.sheldonbrown.com/creaks.html

operator

Wrong. Pedal washers have a function, preventing stuff from getting stripped isn't one of them.

illadelphia esq

So if none of the mechanical fixes work I have and idea. If tightening is getting you no where think about the following.

This may sound ridiculous but I had an embarrassing situation when I first stated commuting. I was getting a high pitch noise on my down stroke, on the left, that did not occur when I rotated the pedals while not on the bike. It did not occur at slower speeds.

Apparently it would not have occurred with shorts either because it was my left pant leg rubbing the tire. The noise was my loose pant leg flapping at higher sped into the tire. I'm not proud to admit it but this shows that bikes have a quirky habit of producing noises in all kinds of ways. After the embarrassment I was happy to find I there was nothing mechanically wrong.