Not a pebble inside rim.
 

This has been driving me nuts.

A rotational noise coming from the back wheel. Tire is fine, Campy hub is smooth as silk, noise whether I pedal or call coast. I was all set to rip apart my hub and grease the bejesus out of everything. It's quiet in my garage today, it's definitely a rattle from the inside of the rim.

These are open pros with the reinforced eyelets, so the one and only opening to the inside of the rim is through the valve stem.

I already peeled the rim tape to see.

Shake and wiggle as I might, I can't seem to extricate my noisy friend.

I don't want to rebuild wheel done by someone with far greater skill than mine. I don't want to listen to this either.

I see three options, all are quite redneck.

1. Headphones
2. Spray the inside of the rim with 3m sticky spray and glue the pebble in place
3. Squirt great stuff, expanding foam into the rim to achieve the same thing as #2.

It's pretty hard to ignore.

The culprit is most likely a shard that came loose. The sticking it in place is actually not a bad idea. Before trying that take the tire, tube and rim strip off, hold the wheel with the valve hole on the rim facing down, and instead of shaking, tap the rim firmly with the heel of your hand on the spot the noise is coming from. About 90% will work their way to the opening.

I have an Axiom aluminum rack that had a piece of metal inside and I squirted a few drops of krazy glue into a welding vent hole to stick it in place. It's been silent since. I might be inclined to try something similar here, but maybe with a different type of glue. Something runny so you can distribute it around the inside of the wheel without having to use too much. And tacky so it'll grab the loose piece as you shake/move the wheel around. Maybe squirt something like 3M Super 77 into the valve stem hole, then spin the wheel to distribute it and see if you can get the loose piece to stick to it.

The wisdom of Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, is applicable here:


Turn up the radio.


Squirt glue into the rim, and depending on how far the noisy bit is from the valve hole, there's a good chance you'll lock the nipples in without catching the shard. You won't be able to re-true the wheel, and it'll keep rattling.


I'll vote for the whack, shake, and repeat until it works its way down to the valve hole. You'll want to think about how you're going to grab it to get that sucker out. When you turn the wheel upside down, Murphy's Law says it'll miss the hole and head 180 degrees around the rim. Small needle-nose pliers, tiny tweezers, or maybe warm, sticky bubble gum on the end of a toothpick might work.

I used super glue to stick down a loose bit of carbon in a rim.

The eyelets should reduce the odds of gluing the nipples in place.

You could also treat it like a game, and attempt to get the bit out of the valve hole while you watch TV.

Double wall rim? tried taking the tire and rim strip out yet?

I imagine that the noise goes away if you spin the wheel fast enough, right? (The stone should be pushed out against the wheel/tube/tire during rotation.) I also imagine that the noise would change tone/frequency/pitch with a change in tire speed, yes?

Have you discounted the possibility of spokes rubbing making the noise? I'm sure it's highly unlikely with the information given (professional wheel builder, etc), but I thought I'd mention it.

There's your fourth option: pedal like hell and never slow down.

Good to know. At least one of my Araya CTL-370s has a similar slight rattle from something inside the double wall rim. I only hear it when rolling the bike or handling the wheel off the bike. I think I'll just try to ignore it. I'll pretend it's a dehydrated 1980s speed demon.

I actually think that it may not be inside the rim now.

I pulled the tire and rim strip and shook and beat it. It was rolling quiet in my hand. I reinstalled everything and it was fine.

I rode it around the block and the noise is still there. It's louder the faster I go.

So yeah, no spokes loose or broken although this is pretty much what it sounds like to me.

The wheel seems structurally great, bearings and cassette body seem fine. I am only hearing this while I'm on it. So my weight is throwing something off (I'm only 138, so I'm not crushing it). The question is what.

If it's a crinkling sound (crinkle, crinkle, crinkle while you're riding), it's possible the spokes are badly undertensioned. If you (or your LBS) has a tensiometer, check that out; if not, try the John Allen plucked spoke pitch test.

I had this happen on a Wal-mart 29'er rim(I did not buy the bike at Wal-mart). The pos had so many pieces of metal from when they pierced the spoke holes it sounded like a maraca. Nice if your into mariachi music, not so nice on a bike wheel. I took off the tire, tube and rim strip and shook shook shook it til they stopped coming out of the valve hole. of course this was a schrader valve, a presta with the small hole might take more shaking.
Good Luck

This really does seem like a spoke tension problem to me. I like the other advice -- have your local bike shop give it a quick check. If the tension is fine, they probably won't even charge you. If it's not good, you'll want to have it corrected.

Do you have any other bikes from which you could swap a wheel to test? Maybe your local bike shop would be agreeable to you swapping one of their wheels and riding in the parking lot to check (if the tension checks out).

FWIW I have heard that on my wheels and the clicking was where spokes crossed. Cleaning those places off between the spokes and it went away, even a little oil there. See if that eliminates the ticking, and then if spoke tension is badly off you can feel it just by squeezing the adjacent spokes. It won't hurt the true to tighten up a badly under-tensioned spoke so special wheel-building skills or tools aren't really necessary.

+1

How slow is the OP riding?

At any normal riding speed, whatever is loose inside the rim will be pressed and held fast against the outer wall and silent. So look for some other cause of whatever noise is bothering you.

You can diagnose clicking at the crosses by cutting a piece of paper into a bunch of small pieces, and trapping one between each of the crosses. If this cures it, remove one or two at a time to reveal which crossed pair(s) is the problem.

That hurts man.

Ok, so you've given me enough ideas for tomorrow. Not going to deal with it tonight.

For context, I'm not a bad wheel builder. Every one that I've built has been straight and quiet. It's not like I couldn't do it. These wheels are what came on a used bike I just got. The intersections where the spokes cross are wound together tightly with thread or thin wire. The closest I can compare this with what I've seen is either twisted spoke lacing or when those spoke junctions would get soldered together (I only saw that once, I don't know if it works). They were done by some custom builder in 2001. The bike is new to me and has sat much of it's life. It's possible those junctions are coming loose.

I can hear the sound at all speeds. It's loudest between 12 and 18mph, that's when I'm not going fast enough to create much road and wind noise but the wheels are spinning pretty quick. At 45-50, I can hear it, but barely over the wind. At 6-10, it's pretty noticeable but I'm usually trying not to die up some switchback so I tune it out.

I'll check the spokes again. Maybe even take off the little custom thingamajigs. I'll report back in a day or so.

Sn't take it personally. "Any normal riding speed" is very broad. I doubt you could be riding slow enough for stuff in a rim to move except when climbing. So, I'm not talking about slow vs fast riders, I'm talking about any normal speed.

OK, so the speeds 100% eliminate anything inside the rim moving. Given the age, the odds of it being a notched cross moving have gone way up. Unfortunately the tying will make any diagnosis more difficult. It's hard to know anything without having the wheel in my hands, but I'd try "massaging" the spokes to see if I can cause movement at the cross to produce the "click". If I can't duplicate it, I'd consider raising the overall tension 10%, focusing ion bring any individual low tension spokes (by pitch) closer to the average then test ride.

So an update is in order. I had an opportunity to play around with the wheels and troubleshoot them so more after a ride yesterday. BTW, the noise was definitely present on the ride.

I can recreate the noise, a click or a tick, by tapping rim with my fingertips. I can also recreate the noise by giving giving the wheel (off the bike) a single hard shake. It is definitely coming from the eyelet/nipple area.

The drive side spokes seemed very vertical and tight while the non-drive ones were almost loose. I think the wheelbuilder (if you're following along, is the guy who built these wheels for the previous owner of this bike) tried to counter this by wrapping a thin copper wire around the cross and soldering it on the non drive side only. It looked cool as hell. I'm unconvinced of the efficacy of this particular trick. I removed the wire and and any residual solder.

After that, I put a drop of chain wax in every nipple. Then I loosened all of the spokes one full turn. This didn't really change the trueness of the rim, just gave me a point to start from. I pulled the drive side in a little, then pulled the non drive in to where I "felt" like it should be, then trued, then checked dish and did it again a few times. I ended up tightening the spokes quite a bit more than I had loosened them, IE, the spokes were probably loose.

Initial futzing around with the rim after that seems quiet. It's raining a lot this week and I'm really hoping my wife goes into labor, like now, so I'm not sure I'll give it a test ride too soon. If I do, I'll report back.

I didn't fill my rim with Great Stuff, although I still want to just because I thought of a really cool way to do it.

BTW, while I've got your attention. There is a squeak coming from my seatpost. Lube over every possible surface. It's an older Campy Chorus Ti post with a few dents and no visible cracks. I thought it was my ass>shorts>seat interface. Adding a little beeswax leather conditioner helps a little. If I grab the seatpost while riding, the noise goes away. I think that's ominous, maybe I'll fill that with great stuff too (kidding). I've seen Ti fatigue and crack in surgical implants and ice climbing gear, no reason a seatpost wouldn't. I've always been fond of the way a Thomson adjusts anyway.

I know you've determined its not something in the rim, but if it was and I was having trouble getting it out I would have tried flushing it out with water.

Yup.

"How many flies does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"
"Two but how do they get in there?"