Can't find the creak!!!!!
 

I am riding a 2004 trek 2100 with a OCLV Bontrager Race Lite Fork, Cane Creek threadless headset, and a bontrager race stem. Recently I have noticed a creak that seems to be coming from my fork. The creak only occurs when I stand up and pedal hard.... especially if I (and the bike) are moving laterally side to side while grinding up a hill.

I have thought through this a little and suspected my BB but have since ruled that out since the creak seems to be coming more from the front half of the bike, and mainly from the front wheel/hub/fork.... who knows!!!!!!!**********

Any help is appreciated!

:rolleyes:

I have an older Dean Ti bike with a carbon fork and Mavic Cosmic Elite wheels that does the same thing and it's the plastic end caps on the hub. Whenever it starts up I take off the end caps, clean everything, apply a little grease to the contact surfaces and then re-tighten the end caps and axle. It'll stay quiet for a few hundred miles before starting up again and I just repeat the service process. The same thing happened on one of our tandems which had a True Temper Alpha Q AX fork and Phil Wood hubs. The noise was coming from one of the cartridge bearings. I just popped out the bearing, cleaned everything and applied some Loctite 242 (blue) to the race and pressed the bearing back in; problem solved.

Not sure if this is what you're dealing with, but it's easy to check: just grab a hold of the front wheel and apply pressure on it back and forth from side-to-side. If you hear creaking it's either the fork drop-outs or the hub. If you have a spare wheel, put it on the bike and see if that stops the creak. If it does, it's your hub. If it's still there, it's probably a fork drop-out.

True Temper will replace loose or damaged drop-outs in their carbon forks for $25 (or for nada if covered under warranty, i.e., you didn't drop the bike on the fork ends or crash it) and turn-around is just about a day or two + shipping time; I would suspect Reynolds, Bontrager/Trek, and other folks who still fab and/or service their products in the US would offer a similar service.

Just some things to look at.

It could also be your stem. remove your stem and lightly sand or clean the inside of the stem and the steerer tube. Lightly grease the steerer tube and reassemble.

Don't tighten down on your star nut too tightly or you'll put your headset in a bind.

Take out your stem bolts and lube with Phil Wood or some other grease and put them back in. The Wrench at my LBS taught me this last year, and it worked! Try it, what will it cost ya? :D

Oh yeah..... same with the bolts holding the handle bar.

Sounds can easily travel through the frame so that the sounds appears to becoming from somewhere that it really ain't! If it's not the front wheel I'd go back and check the BB.

It's possibly the front steering tube, i've never had the forks themselves creak, or the handlebars...but that's just me.

Also, are you SURE thesound is coming from where you think it is? If your brain can't locate where a sound is coming form, it likes to put it somewhere to your front. Or mine does anyway. Half the stuff I hear infront of me is actually behind me, very rarely vice versa.

I had an instance where a tool in my under-the-seat toolbag was hitting my seatpost and it sounded like it was coming from somewhere around the headset.

Thanks for all of the info! I have narrowed it down to the bottom of the fork. It seems as though the creak comes when the bike is at an angle to the ground (i.e. grinding/standing up while pedaling the bike sways back and forth from side to side.) I have derived the following two possibilities:
1. The skewer/axle is shifting slightly and causing the creak (I will try to grease it a little and see if that works)
2. The ends of the fork (dropouts) are loose.

Thanks for the help, any additional help is welcome!!!!

Same problem, same fork, same Race Lite rims. I added a bit of grease to the area where the nipples contact the rim and it mostly went away. Try swapping out your front wheel with another. I bet it is the wheel.

Thanks! I don't have another wheel to swap out, but I may try greasing the spokes/nipples.

Turns out that the creaking was coming from the point at which the spokes connect to the hub. Put some TriFlow on those points and the creaking is gone!

Thanks for all of the help!

put some oil or lub on every moving part!!!