Creaking bottle cage
 

I have a couple of the cheapo ebay carbon bottle cages which sometimes creak over bumps. The bolts are nice and snug but not up to the 5nm (iirc) max torque spec'ed by Felt. Should I (1) up the torque to the spec (2) put some grease between the frame and cage or (3) ignore it, what do you expect from this cheap stuff or (4) ?

I don't think they need 5 Nm, that's just, you know, the max. I guess I'd try some grease, followed by ignoring it.

Did you try removing the gage and bolts and cleaning everything properly? Any dust in the connection can cause creaking. My seat used to squeak mercilessly all the time no matter how much I tightened the bolts, but eventually, I took everything apart and cleaned all the connecting parts and it did the trick. Hasn't squeaked in years.

You could try grease, but that might make road dust stick in the bolts and bosses and making things worse.

Grease your bolt threads & re-tighten. That's my 2 cents.

Put a washer between the bolt and cage and the cage and boss on your frame with a dab of grease on both.

Also, as others have mentioned, grease the threads on the bolts themselves.

Might not even be the cages...as has been mentioned a lot before creakes on a carbon bike (and I'm assuming the frame is carbon if you've gone and bought carbon bottle cages) can come from anywhere and sound like its coming from anywhere...

I'd take them off, go for a ride and see if the noise is still there.

^^^Ooooh!

^^^Aaaah!

^^^^Uh.

Uh.


Uh.

Oh, yes.

YES!

YES!

this did the trick. I knew it was the cage because the noise disappeared when I removed the cage and reappeared when I reinstalled it.

^^^Winner, winner, chicken dinner!