I really love shellac-coated bar wrap, but I'm experiencing something odd this summer and last. When I put weight on my handlebars, I'm hearing a sort of creaking sound. Seemingly like all bike noises, it's a little tough to nail down exactly where it's coming from, but it's definitely associated with the bars or stem. I checked to ensure the stem and bars are adequately tightened. Like I always do when I pull a stem or seat post, I added a touch of grease (I'm fanatical about those two spots in particular.) When those didn't clear up the issue I grabbed my Sherlock Holmes cap and pipe and sat down to ponder things a bit. Here are the facts:

• This is intermittent. The creaking is only apparent in the summer during the hottest and most humid conditions. In Missouri, that means I only hear it when both the temp and humidity are in the upper 90's/90%.
• It's only apparent on the bikes with cotton wrap coated with shellac. Different stem and bars on each bike, so nothing common between them. On the other hand, I have the same bar and stem on two bikes: one with shellac and the other with cork wrap. The cork wrap bars are silent.
• When we rejoin the rest of the world, in terms of climate, the sound goes away entirely.

It doesn't seem to be causing damage, but the noise is driving me a little nuts. Anyone else experience this? Is it possible it's unique to shellac coating? I'm all ears, folks.

If you ride with gloves on, perhaps your hearing the fabric of the gloves rubbing on the shellac coated bartape.

I'll take a crack at it.

I could see the relatively brittle, when dried, shellac impregnated cloth not adhering that well to the aluminum and sort of squeaking under torsion.

How's that for a seat-of-the-pants-off-the-cuff-hairbrained theory? ;>

Ah it only sounds like the tape...it's your shoulder

Despite tightening, I still go for the bar/stem interface. I'm assuming no grease or other assembly paste in there. Second guess is the headset.

That was my scientific wild a$$ guess as well.

Ha I was going to suggests wrists.

I was going to suggest something like the shellac softening. But first I wanted to find out what, exactly, is shellac. Every time I searched for it, or anything for that matter, I went to ebay. So I rebooted, and still am going to ebay. ideas?

"Shellac is a resin secreted by the female lac bug, on trees in the forests of India and Thailand. It is processed and sold as dry flakes (pictured) and dissolved in ethanol to make liquid shellac, which is used as a brush-on colorant, food glaze and wood finish." - from Wikipedia

Brent

The revenge of the Lac bug.
Brent

I had a creaky sound I was going nuts trying to find, it sounded like it was up front, when I was leaning on my hoods and pedaling it would always come back. I tried everything to find it. Finally after having given up I was put that treatment on my Brooks saddle, because the saddle had been soaked several times. It went away, recently it came back and I proofide ed it and it is gone again.

Creaky scares me. I would swap a couple parts out and see when it goes away.

Don't get your cotton's in a wad. Try looser wrap?

1st aid advice? By this time that creaking stem should have snapped.

It's unlikely the shellacked cotton is the source, but I've been surprised before.

Much more likely it's metal to metal contact in the stem/handlebar/steer tube area. Every place metal contacts metal should be greased.

Take apart and grease the stem bolt that clamps the handlebar, both the threads and where it is seated. Grease the handlebar where the stem clamps it. Pull the stem and grease the main stem bolt threads, nut end, wedge and the actual stem shaft. Reassemble to proper torques. I bet no more creak.

Steve Albini was in Shellac, and he's a little older than me, and I'm kind of creaky, so it wouldn't surprise me.