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Friggin' Seat Creak! 🤬

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#21 ·
Borrow someone else’s extra dropper or extra saddle, replace things one at a time to eliminate possibilities. Process of elimination. I did all these, including replacing rear shock and bearings, only to find that it was the crank bolt needing grease.

300+ bucks later, piece and quiet to enjoy a bike ride. Dont regret it though.

How bad is your creak and how badly do you want it to go away?
 
#22 ·
I've got saddle-creaks as well, from where the rails sits in the very front of the seat. I've mostly everything to get rid of it permanently. Cleaning,greasing and/or tightening only lasts for a couple rides. Think I might try thin strips of cloth saturated with marinegrease between rails and saddle next....
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#24 ·
I have seen many Race Face stem bolts fail. I haven't dealt with many of their posts. But my feeling is they don't spec the highest grade hardware. If your bolts are normal-ish style cap head machine screws, try replacing them with nice stainless pieces from the hardware store. If I recall, those might be normal cap screws with not-so-normal spherical flange nuts seated in the top clamp plate. Finding those nuts at the local Ace might be challenging but possible.
 
#25 ·
Wabatuckian said:
Damn Frenchies anyway. 😝
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Hey now! I love my Frenchies!

Wabatuckian-try swapping out the saddle. I sweat so much its not uncommon for me to "sweat-rot" a saddle. This can cause creaking, foam deterioration, metal corrosion, and leather/fauxleather delamination. It may be the inner guts of the saddle are rotting.

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Discussion starter · #30 ·
storm.petter said:
I've got saddle-creaks as well, from where the rails sits in the very front of the seat. I've mostly everything to get rid of it permanently. Cleaning,greasing and/or tightening only lasts for a couple rides. Think I might try thin strips of cloth saturated with marinegrease between rails and saddle next....
View attachment 2155384
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That's one part that creaks on mine occasionally, but not enough to worry about.

I'm starting to wonder if these bolts are stretching, will they eventually break? Maybe they're from a bad batch?
 
#31 ·
Wabatuckian said:
That's one part that creaks on mine occasionally, but not enough to worry about.

I'm starting to wonder if these bolts are stretching, will they eventually break? Maybe they're from a bad batch?
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Easiest fix is to just remove the saddle all together. Saddles are over rated anyways. They are always laced with drugs from the factory.
 
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#32 ·
Chasing squeaks is high on my list of annoyances with bikes.

I had one recently, that, I think was a compound issue. It took like 2 months to eventually sort out. I would identify a problem area, then try a fix, and see if that was it, that way I didn't have to wonder what it was that eventually fixed it.

  • At first, it only squeaked when in the saddle, and under power.
    • So I took the saddle off, and cleaned/greased the saddle rails.
      • No real improvement.
  • Squeaks were continuing, but perhaps also were from torque to the handlebar.
    • Serviced headset, cleaned stem/stem spacers, torqued stem, and handlebar clamp, as well as brakes/levers.
      • No real improvement
  • Found that the creaks were only happening under power, on the left side.
    • Serviced the pedals
      • No improvement
  • Still squeaking, while seated, and not when cycling the suspension.
    • Installed new seat post (had a new dropper on the bench for a few months, old ones anodizing was wearing, and this bike uses more drop)
    • Cleaned/greased seatclamp, as well as seatpost
      • Slight Improvement.
  • Still creaked, and now it wasn't just when sitting down.
    • Cleaned/greased upper seat stay pivots, checked all other pivots with torque wrench, checked that crankset was tight.
      • No improvement
  • Still creaking, even more, like it was getting worse, and something was getting looser.
    • Took crankset out, removed chainring, cleaned/greased interface
    • Tightened the BB. Non-driveside BB cup was just about hand tight.
    • Cleaned/greased/re-installed BB cup, and crankset (checked/torqued driveside as well)
      • SUCCESS

There is still an EVER so slight occasional "tic" sound coming from somewhere that I need to track down. But, I'm no longer embarrassed to be pedaling around another biker, because of the constant squeaking.

So yeah, squeaks suck. Good luck.
 
#36 ·
Wabatuckian said:
Ok, so, everything on the clamp is greased, except for the bolts.

The bolts are re-torqued and Loc-Tited to crap.

The aluminum seat post has carbon assembly paste where it mates to the frame.

We'll see what happens.
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