I bought one of those Mercier track bikes that were for sale on EBay a couple weeks ago. It's only my third bike in my life! (My first being when I was a kid, my second was a mountain bike in 8th grade, and now this bike.) =)

For the most part, I really like this bike. I'm totally enjoying the fixed gear riding.

My question is that I have a lot of chain noise when pedaling forward. It sounds like it coming from the cog area, but I think it's the chain. When I'm not pedaling forward and torqueing (sp?) the cranks, the drivetrain is completely quiet. It's quiet when I'm just coasting to a stop and it's quiet when I'm back pedaling to stop, as well.

I "think" that the chainline is on, but to be honest, I haven't gone through Sheldon's steps yet to be sure. I was just assuming that the factory chainline would be pretty on. The chain tension is not too tight either. I've tried it tight and I've tried it loose, but it doesn't matter. I still have noise as described before.

When the chain is off and I turn the crank and freely spin the rear wheel, all is quiet.

What should my troubleshooting steps be and what do you think that it would be?

I know that the chain is cheap and when I look down it it doesn't even appear to be perfectly straight! Is this normal? It's a KMC chain and says 'Z' on the links and has a '3K' on a couple of the links. Is this the Z30 chain, which is that cheap, standard chain? Is this chain (according to quality) guaranteed to be noisy like this?

I know that first I should check the chainline, but then what? Should I try buying a new chain? Would I have to look into getting a new chainring and cog?

Thanks for the help. This board has been so helpful in me gaining the little knowledge that I have so far about fixed gear bikes. =)

Ryan